Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Celestial Plot

When Captain Ireneus Morris and Dr. Charles Albert Servain disappeared from Buenos Aires one 20th of December, the newspapers made only a passing mention of the mysterious fact. It was hinted that an investigation was being made, since the case had certain suspicious aspects. Furthermore, it was believed that, since the plane used by the fugitives had a limited flight range, they could not be very far away. At about that time I received a package containing three large volumes (The Complete Works of Louis Auguste Blanqui); a ring of slight value (an aquamarine carved with the image of a horse-headed goddess); a typed manuscript entitled “The Adventures of Captain Morris”, signed by C. A. S, which I am transcribing below.

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MORRIS

The story could begin with some Celtic legend about the journey of a hero to a land at the bottom of a well, or an invisible prison made of living branches, or a ring that makes its wearer invisible, or a magic cloud, or a young girl deep within a mirror that is held by the knight who is destined to save her, or the interminable and fruitless search for the tomb of King Arthur:

This is the tomb of March and this is the tomb of Gwythyir;

This is the tomb of Gagawn Gleddyffreidd;

But the tomb of Arthur is unknown.

It could also begin with the news, which I heard with some surprise and a certain indifference, that the military tribunal was accusing Captain Morris of treason. Or with the negation of astronomy. Or with a theory of those movements called “passes” that are used to make spirits appear or disappear.

I shall select a less exciting beginning. If it lacks the charm of magic, at least it will be methodical. This does not imply a repudiation of the supernatural, even less does it imply a repudiation of the allusions or invocations of my first paragraph.

My name is Charles Albert Servain, and I was born in Rauch. I am of Armenian descent. My country has not existed for eight centuries, but there is a solidarity among my people, and all our descendants will hate the Turks. The old saying “Once an Armenian, always an Armenian” is still true today. We are like a secret society, a clan; although we are dispersed on different continents, our mysterious blood, the distinctive eyes and noses of our people, or way of understanding and enjoying our land, our talents, our intrigues, our unique excesses, and the passionate beauty of our women unite us.

I am a bachelor and, like Don Quixote, I live (or rather, lived) with my niece: a pleasant and diligent young girl. I would add another adjective—serene—but that word would not characterize her accurately now. My niece liked the play at being my secretary, and so I let her answer my telephone, organize my vast filing system, and write out medical histories from the notes I took while my patients described their ailments. She had another, equally innocent occupation—she accompanied me to the cinema every Friday afternoon. The day when all this began happened to be a Friday.

I was in my office, and suddenly the door burst open and a young soldier rushed into the room. My niece was to my right, behind the desk. Without changing her expression, she handed me a sheet of paper on which to write his complaints. The young officer introduces himself—his name was Lieutenant Kramer—stared brazenly at my secretary, and then asked if he might have a word with me. Of course I assented.

‘Captain Ireneus Morris would like to see you, he said. ‘He is a patient at the Military Hospital.’

Perhaps contaminated by the martial bearing of my interlocutor, I replied briskly, ‘Yes, sir!’

‘When can you come to see him?’

‘Right away. If Morris can have visitors now—’

‘He can,’ said Kramer, and with noisy, gymnastic movements he saluted smartly and left.

I looked at my niece; her expression had altered. I felt angry, and asked her what the matter was.

‘Do you know that there’s only one person you’re interested in?’ she asked.

Ingenuously, I turned as she pointed: I saw myself in the mirror. My niece ran out of the room.

For some time she had been growing more and more impatient with me. And now she was saying that I was selfish! I attributed her accusation in part to my bookplates. The words Know thyself are printed on them in Greek, Latin and Spanish (I never suspected the effect that maxim would have on my life), and there is a small sketch of me looking through a magnifying glass at my reflection in a mirror. My niece had attacked thousands of those bookplates to thousands of volumes in my versatile library. But there was another reason why she said I was selfish: I am a methodical person, and methodical men (those of us who postpone involvement with women because we are engaged in serious occupations) appear to be either madmen or fools or egotists.

I examined my next two patients automatically, and then hurried off to the Military Hospital.

The clock was just striking six as I reached the old building on Pozos Street. I sat alone in the waiting room, and then submitted to a brief interrogation. After that some attendants escorted me to Morris’ room. A sentinel with fixed bayonet stood at the door. Inside the room two men were playing dominoes near Morris’ bed. They did not acknowledge my presence.

Morris and I have known each other for years; we have never been friends. I was very fond of his father. He was a fine old fellow, with a round close-cropped white head and excessively hard, alert blue eyes. he possessed an irrepressible Welsh patriotism and an uncontrollable urge to relate Celtic legends. For many years (the happiest of my life) he was my teacher. I studied with him every afternoon. I listened while he told about the adventures of the Mabinogion, and then we drank yerba mate together. At such times Ireneus would be playing outdoors; he caught birds and rats and then created heterogeneous cadavers with a penknife, a needle, and thread. Old Morris said that his son was going to be a doctor. I was going to be an inventor because I hated Ireneus’ experiments, and once I had designed an interplanetary missile that would make extensive journeys to other parts of the universe, and a hydraulic motor capable of perpetual motion. Ireneus and I were alienated by a mutual and conscious antipathy. Now when we meet we experience a feeling of intense joy, a flowering of nostalgia and cordiality; we repeat a brief dialogue with fervent allusions to an imaginary friendship and an imaginary past, and then we have nothing else to say to each other.

The tenacious Celtic strain from Wales ended in his father. Ireneus is completely Argentina, and neither understands nor respects foreigners. Even his appearance is typically Argentine: he is short, slender, fine-boned, with carefully combed, shiny black hair and a knowing look about him.

He seemed very touched that I had come (I had never seen him like that, not even on the night his father died.)

‘Let me shake your hand,’ he said, speaking loudly enough for the men who were playing dominoes to hear. ‘At this crucial time, you have been my old friend.’

It seemed like a rather extravagant way to thank me for my visit.

‘We have a lot to talk about,’ continued Morris. ‘but you must realize that in the presence of a couple of circumstances like these…’ –he nodded gravely in the direction of the two men—‘I prefer to say nothing. Anyway, I shall be home in a few days—you must look in on me then.’

As I entered the room I had the sensation of receding fin time. I was almost surprised not to see old Morris there (he died ten years ago), polished and benign, calmly administering the mate ceremony. Nothing was changed. The same books were on the shelves; the same busts of Lloyd George and William Morris that had contemplated my carefree youth contemplated me now; and the horrible painting that had startled my first attacks of insomnia was still hanging on the wall: The Death of Griffith ap Rhys, who was known as the light and the power and the pride of the men from the South.

I tried to steer the conversation to the subject that interested him. He said he merely had a few details to add to the information he had given me in his letter. I did not know what to say: I had not received a letter from Ireneus. With sudden decision I asked him to tell me the story from the beginning, if it would not tire him too much.

And then Ireneus Morris told me his mysterious story.

Until the past 23rd of June he had been a test pilot for military planes, first at the military installation at Córdoba, and later at Palomar Air Base.

He assured me that a test pilot enjoyed considerable prestige. He had made more flights than any other pilot in South and Central America. His resistance was extraordinary. He had made so many flights that automatically, inevitably, he reduced them all to one single flight. He took a notebook from his pocket and drew a series of lines in a zigzag pattern on a blank page. He carefully wrote down numbers (distances, altitudes, the degrees of angles). Then he tore out the page and gave it to me. he said that I possessed his “classic flight plan.”

Around the middle of June they notified him that he would be testing a new Breguet—the 309—a one-place combat plane, which had been built according to a French patent of two or three years before. The test was to be classified top secret. Morris went home, picked up a notebook—as I did here, a minute ago, he said—and drew the flight plan, ‘like the one I just gave you.’ Then he tried to make it a bit more complicated; ‘in this same study where we spent so many happy hours together,’ he thought about the lines he had added, he memorized them.

The morning of 23 June, the dawn of a beautiful and terrible adventure, was gray and rainy. When Morris arrived at the airport the plane was in the hangar, and he had to wait for them to take it out. He walked up and down to keep from feeling the cold; his feet were soaking wet. Finally the Breguet appeared. It was a low-winged monoplane, “nothing otherworldly, I can assure you.” He gave it a cursory examination.

Morris leaded forward, and whispered in a confidential tone, “The seat was narrow, extremely uncomfortable.” He remembered that the fuel-gauge indicator pointed to “full”, and that there were no insignia on the wings of the plane. He said that he waved his hand, and immediately afterward the gesture seemed false. He taxied about five hundred yards, and took off. he began to execute his new test-flight plan.

He was the strongest test pilot in the country. Purely a matter of physical strength, he assured me. and I have never known him to exaggerate unduly. Although I found it hard to believe, he said that suddenly he experienced a darkening of vision. Morris, recounting the adventure, grew loquacious, excited, and I became engrossed in his story: soon after taking off in the new plane, he experienced a darkening vision, he told himself guiltily that he was going to faint, he collided with a vast dark mass (perhaps a cloud), he had a fleeting, ecstatic glimpse of something like the glimpse of a radiant paradise—He was scarcely able to get the plane back on course when he was about to touch the landing field.

He regained consciousness. He was stretched out painfully on a white bed in a high-ceilinged room with bare white walls. A bumblebee was buzzing; for a few seconds he thought he was somewhere out in the country, and that he had awakened from a nap. Then he realized that he had been injured, that he was a patient in the Military Hospital. He was not particularly surprised, but he did not yet remember the accident. And when he did the real surprise came, for he did not understand how he could have fainted. Actually, he had not fainted at all—But I shall say more about that later.

The person at his side was a woman. He looked at her. She was a nurse.

Dogmatic and critical, he spoke to me about women in general. He was rather bitter. He said that there was one type of woman, and even one certain woman, destined to satisfy each man’s physical needs, and he added something to the effect that it was better not to find her, because if he did a man sensed that she was a decisive element in his life and he treated her with fear or clumsiness, preparing the way for a future of anxiety and monotonous frustration. The other women in the world would present no noticeable differences or dangers for a respectable sort of man, he said. I asked him if the nurse was his type of woman. He said no, and explained, “She is a placid, maternal type—pretty enough, I guess.”

He went on with his story.

Some officers came in (he enumerated their ranks). A soldier brought a table and chair, and a typewriter. He sat down and began to type. When he stopped, the officer asked Morris, “Your name?”

That did not surprise him. He thought, “Just a routine question.” He told them his name, and perceived the first indication of the horrible plot in which, unaccountably, he had become involved. All the officers laughed. Morris had never thought that there was anything amusing about his name, and he was irritated.

‘You might have invented something less incredible,’ another officer said. ‘Write it down, anyway.’ He said, turning to the soldier at the typewriter.

‘Nationality?’

‘Argentine,’ he said without hesitation.

‘Are you in the Army?’

‘Well, I had the accident, but anyone would think you did!’ he said, with an attempt at irony.

They laughed a little (among themselves, as if Morris were not there).

‘I belong to the Army, with the rank of captain, 7th Regiment, 121st Squadron,’ continued Morris.

‘Based at Montevideo?’ asked one of the officers sarcastically.

‘No, at Palomar.’ replied Morris.

He gave his address: 971 Bolívar Street. The group left, and came back the next day with several different officers. When Morris realized that they doubted, or pretended to doubt, his nationality, he wanted to get out of bed and fight them. His injury and the gentle pressure of the nurse restrained him. The officers returned the next afternoon, and the following morning, the weather was very hot; his whole body ached. He told me that he would have confessed to anything in order to be left in peace.

What were they trying to do? Why did they not know who he was? Why did they insult him, why did they pretend that he was not an Argentine? He was perplexed and infuriated. One night the nurse took his hand, and told him that he was not defending himself very cleverly. He said that he had no reason to defend himself at all. he stayed awake that whole night, feeling alternately waves of anger, a determination to face the situation calmly, and then violent reactions that made him swear to refuse “to play this absurd game any longer.” In the morning he wanted to apologize to the nurse for the way he had treated her. He knew she only meant to help him—“and she is not ugly, if you know what I mean”—but, as he did not know how to make apologies, he asked her irritably what she would advise him to do. The nurse suggested that he call some responsible person to testify on his behalf.

When the officers returned he t old them that he was a friend of Lieutenant Kramer and Lieutenant Viera, Captain Faverio, Lieutenant Colonel Margaride, and Lieutenant Colonel Navarro.

Around five o’clock Lieutenant Kramer, his lifelong friend, came in with the officers. Morris admitted that the sight of Kramer brought tears to his eyes. (To cover his embarrassment, he added, ‘After a shock, a man is not himself!’) He remembered that he sat bolt upright in bed and held out his hand, shouting ‘Come in, old man!’

Kramer stood there eyeing him coldly.

‘Lieutenant Kramer, do you know this man?’ asked one of the officers. His voice was insidious.

Morris said that he expected Kramer, with a sudden exclamation of cordiality, to reveal that his attitude was part of a joke.

‘I have never seen him before,’ replied Kramer too vehemently, as if he was afraid they would not believe him. ‘I give you my word that I have never seen him before!’

They believed him at once, and the tension that had existed for a few seconds was broken. They went away. Morris heard the laughter of the officers, and Kramer’s frank laugh and the voice of an officer saying, ‘I’m not a bit surprised. Believe me, I’m not a bit surprised. What a colossal nerve he has!’

Essentially the same thing happened with Viera and Margaride, but there was more violence. A book—one of the books allegedly sent by me—was on the bed, within Morris’s reach, and he threw it at Viera when the lieutenant pretended not to know him. Morris gave me a detailed description of the incident, which I did not find completely credible. I did not doubt his anger, but I could not believe that his injury would have permitted him to move so quickly. The officers thought there was not need to call Faverio, who was in Mendoza. Then Morris had an inspiration: threats might have changed the young men into traitors, but they would have no effect on General Huet, an old friend of his family, who had always been like a father, or a very strict stepfather, to him.

They told him drily that there was no general with such a ridiculous name in the Argentine Army, nor had there ever been.

Morris was not afraid. Perhaps if he had known some fear, he could have handled the situation better. His inherent interest in women stood him in good stead—“and you know how they like to exaggerate danger, how hypercritical they are,” he said.

Once before, the nurse had taken his hand to try to convince him of the danger he was facing; now Morris looked into her eyes, and asked the meaning of the plot against him. The nurse told him what she had heard: his statement that he had tested the Breguet on 23 June was false; no one had tested planes at Palomar Air Base that afternoon. The Breguet had recently been adopted by the Argentine Army, but the numeration of Morris’ plane did not correspond to the system currently in use.

‘Do they think I am a spy?’ he asked with incredulity. Again the felt anger rising within him.

‘They think you have come from some neighboring country,’ ventured the nurse timidly.

Morris swore to her as an arginine that he was an Argentine, that he was not a spy. She seemed quite touched, and then continued in the same tone of voice:

Your uniform resembles ours, but they have discovered that the seams are made differently.’

When she added, as if in an afterthought, ‘Didn’t it occur to you that they would notice?’ Morris realized that she did not believe him either. He felt that rage was choking him. To conceal it, he kissed her on the mouth, and held her in his arms.

A few days later the nurse said, ‘They found out that you gave a false address.’

Morris’s protests were useless; the woman produced documentary evidence showing that a Mr. Charles Grimaldi lived at Bolívar 971. Morris experienced a brief sensation of memory, of amnesia. The name Charles Grimaldi seemed to be linked to some past experience; he was unable to identify it more precisely.

The nurse told him that his case had caused people to take opposing sides: those who believed he was a foreigner, and those who believed he was an Argentine. In other words, some wanted to exile him; others, to execute him.

‘By insisting that you are an Argentine,’ said the woman, ‘you are helping the cause of those who are demanding your execution.’

Morris confessed that for the first time he had felt in his own country “the desolation of those who travel abroad.” And still he was not afraid. The woman pleaded with him tearfully, and at last he promised to do whatever she asked.

‘I don’t know why, but I wanted to make her happy.’

The woman begged him to admit that he was not an Argentine.

‘It was a terrible shock, as if someone had suddenly pushed me under a cold shower. But I promised to do it, even though I had no intention of keeping my promise.’

He explained his objections to her. ‘If I say I am from a certain country, they will investigate and find out what it’s not true.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the nurse. ‘No country would admit that it sent spies to another country. But if you make that statement, and if I can persuade some influential person to help you, the group in favor of exile may win, if it is not too late.’

The next day an officer came to take his statement. They were alone. ‘Your case has already been decided,’ the man said. ‘They will sign the death warrant within a week.’

Morris interpreted the situation for me: ‘I had nothing to lose.’

And so, to see what would happen, he told the officer, ‘I confess that I am an Uruguayan.’

That afternoon the nurse explained that it had been a trick; she had been afraid that he would not keep his promise; the officer was a friend of hers, and had instructions to obtain his confession.

‘If it had been any other woman, I think I would hav beaten her,’ said Morris shortly.

His confession had not arrived in time; the situation was growing worse. His last remaining hope was to be helped by a man whom the nurse knew, whose identity she could not reveal. The man wanted to see Morris before he would agree to do anything for him.

‘She told me frankly,’ said Morris, ‘that she had tried to avoid the interview. She was afraid I would make a bad impression. But the man wanted to see me and he was our only hope. She advised me to be prepared to compromise.’

‘The man will not come to the hospital,’ said the nurse.

‘There there’s not use,’ replied Morris with a sense of relief.

‘The first night we can trust the sentinels you must go to see him,’ the nurse continued. ‘You are well now; you can go alone.’

She took a ring from her finger and gave it to him.

‘I put it on my little finger,’ said Morris. ‘I am not sure about the stone—it may be valuable or only a piece of glass. The head of a horse is carved on the underside of it. I was to wear it with the stone turned toward the inside of my hand, and the sentinels would let me come and go as if they did not see me.’

The nurse gave him instructions. He was to leave at twelve-thirty and return before three-fifteen A.M. The nurse wrote the man’s address on a piece of paper.

‘Do you still have it?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’ He replied, and looked in his wallet. He handed me the paper somewhat peevishly.

It was a slip of blue paper. The address—6890 Márquez—was written in a firm, feminine hand (with unexpected insight Morris said that the handwriting revealed a Sacred Heart education).

‘What is the nurse’s name?’ I asked out of simple curiosity.

Morris appeared to be annoyed.

‘They call her Idibal,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t know whether it is her first name or her last.’

He continued the story:

On the prearranged night Idibal did not come. He did not know what to do. At twelve-thirty he decided to go.

It seemed future to show the ring to the sentinel at the door of his room. The man raised his bayonet. Morris showed the ring; he was allowed to pass freely. He backed up against a door: in the distance, at the end of the corridor, he had seen a corporal. Then, following Idibal’s instructions, he went down a service stairway, and came to a door leading to the street. He showed the ring and went out. He hailed a taxicab; he gave the driver the address on the paper. They drove for half an hour or so. Near Juan B. Justo and Gaona Streets they circled the railroad yards, and drove down a tree-lined avenue near the city limits. After five or six blocks they stopped in front of a church with many columns and domes, which loomed white in the darkness above the low neighborhood houses.

He thought there had been a mistake; he consulted the paper. The number it gave was the number of the church.

‘Were you go in, or wait outside?’ I asked.

He said he had been uncertain, but he went inside. No one was there.

‘What was the church like?’ I asked.

‘Oh, just like all the others,’ he replied.

Then he told me that he waited by a fountain with three jets of water—some fish were swimming in it—and soon a priest appeared. He asked if Morris was looking for someone. Morris said no. the priest went away; then he came back again. He did that three or four times. Morris was surprised at the man’s curiosity, and had about decided to ask for his help when the man inquired if he had “the ring of the brotherhood”

‘The ring—of what?’ asked Morris. To me he added, ‘How could I have known that he was referring to the rung Idibal gave me?’

The man looked at his hands intently and insisted, ‘Show me the ring!’

Morris shuddered with nervous repulsion; then he showed the ring.

The priest took him to the sacristy, and asked for an explanation. He listened to Morris’s story passively, ‘as if he took it for a rather astute, but false, explanation. He seemed to be sure that he would hear, eventually, the true version, my confession.’

When he was convinced that Morris would say nothing more, he displayed signs of exasperation and brought the interview to a close. He said he would try to do something for him.

He tried to insert his key in the lock; it did not fit. He rang the doorbell. He stood there for ten minutes, but no one came to the door. It made him furious to find that the maid had taken advantage on his absence—his misfortune—to spend the night elsewhere. He rang the bell again, as vigorously as he could. He heard sounds that seemed to come from the remote interior of the house; then a series of rhythmical thuds that kept growing louder. A human figure appeared; it looked enormous. Morris pulled down the brim of his hat, and moved back into the shadows. Immediately he recognized the sleepy and indignant man, and he had the impression that he, Morris, was the one who was dreaming. He said to himself, “Yes, it’s Grimaldi. The old cripple, Charles Grimaldi himself!” Then, as he remembered that name, incredible he was standing face to face with the man who had been living in the house when his father bought it more than fifteen years ago.

‘What do you want?’ bellowed Grimaldi.

Morris recalled how the man had stubbornly refused to move, and how his father had sent gifts to induce him to leave the premises after fruitlessly threatening to evict him.

‘Is Miss Carmen Soares in?’ asked Morris, stalling for time.

Grimaldi swore, slammed the door, turned out the light. In the darkness Morris heard the uneven footsteps growing fainter; then, with a commotion of glass and steel, a streetcar clanged by; and there was silence again.

‘He didn’t recognize me!’ thought Morris triumphantly.

Immediately afterward he experienced shame, surprise, rage. He wanted to kick down the door, and drag the intruder out. As if he were drunk, he shouted, ‘I’m going to report you to the police!’ He wondered about the meaning of the multiple and overwhelming offensive his friends had launched against him. He decided to consult me.

If he found me at home, he would have time to explain the facts to me. he hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take him to Owen Way. The man had never heard of that street. Morris asked him sardonically how he had been able to get a job as a taxicab driver. He cursed the police, who allowed interlopers to move into our houses, and foreigners, who never learned to find their way about our cities. The driver suggested he take another cab. Morris ordered him to drive out Vélez Sársfield until he crossed the railroad tracks.

The crossing was barricaded; interminable gray grains were maneuvering back and forth. Morris ordered him to drive around Solá Station on Toll Street. He got out at the corner of Australia and Luzuriaga. The driver said that Morris would have to pay him because he could not wait, and that there was no such street as Owen Way. Morris did not answer; he walked confidently down the street, turning south of Luzuriaga. The cab driver followed, shouting insults. Morris realized that both he and the driver would spend the night in jail if a policeman happened to come along at that moment.

‘And then they would find out that you had run away from the hospital,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the nurse and the others who helped you would be implicated, too.’

‘That was the least of my worried,’ replied Morris, and he continued the story:

He walked to the end of the block, but did not find Owen Way. he walked another block, and still another. The driver kept protesting; his voice became lower, his tone more sarcastic. Morris retraced his steps; he turned down Alvarado, and came to Pereyra Park, at Rochadale Street. He went down Rochadale. In the middle of the block, on his right, there should have been an opening between the houses where Owen Way intersected it. Morris began to feel sick to his stomach. There was no intersection. He walked to the end of the block and came to Australia Street. He looked up and saw the tank of the International Company on Luzuriaga Street silhouetted against a background of nocturnal clouds. Owen Way should have been opposite, but it was not.

He glanced at his watch; he had scarcely twenty minutes left.

He walked faster, but soon he stopped again. Standing with his feet buried in thick, slippery mud in front of a dismal row of identical houses, he realized he was lost. He wanted to return to Pereyra Park; he could not find it. He was afraid that the cab driver would discover that he was lost. He saw a man approaching; he asked him where Owen Way was. The man did not know; he said he was from a different section of the city. With growing exasperation, Morris, kept on walking. Another man appeared. Morris walked up to him, and the cab driver jumped out of the taxi and followed. Morris and the driver, shouting, asked if he knew where Owen Way was. The man looked frightened, as if he thought they had some evil intent, and said he had never heard of that street. He was about to say something else, but Morris gave him a menacing look and he hurried away.

It was 3:15 A.M. Morris told the cab driver to take him to Caseros and Entre Ríos.

There was a different sentinel on duty at the hospital. Morris walked up and down in front of the door two or three times without daring to enter. He decided to try his luck; he showed the ring. The sentinel let him pass.

The nurse came late the following afternoon.

‘You did not make a good impression on the man at the church,’ she said. ‘Naturally, he was impressed by the way you told the story—he is always telling the members of the brotherhood about the importance of deception—but he was offended by your refusal to confide in him.’

It was doubtful that the man would help Morris now.

The situation had grown worse. The hope that he could pass for a foreigner was gone, and his life was in immediate danger. He wrote a detailed account of what had happened and sent it to me. Then, to justify his act, he said that the woman’s fear was getting on his nerves. Perhaps at last he was beginning to be afraid himself.

Idibal went to see the man again. As a favor to her—“not to the odious spy”—he promised that certain influential persons would intervene on his behalf. The plan was to have Morris try a realistic repetition of the flight he had made before. They would give him an airplane and let him repeat the test he said he had made on the day of the accident.

In spite of the influence exerted in his favor, it developed that the test plane would be a two-place aircraft. That made the second part of the plan—Morris’s escape to Uruguay—somewhat more difficult. Morris said he would be able to dispose of the other man. Then the intermediaries insisted that the plane should be identical to the one he was flying at the time of the accident.

After a week in which she overwhelmed him with hopes and anxieties, Idibal came in looking radiant, and said that everything had been arranged. The test was to take place in five days, on the following Friday, and he was to make it alone.

‘I’ll wait for you at Colonia, Uruguay.’ Idibal said, with a look of tenderness. ‘As soon as you take off, head straight for Uruguay. Do you promise?’

He promised. Then he turned over in bed, pretending to sleep.

‘I felt I was being forced into marriage and it made me furious,’ he said.

He did not know then that they were really saying hood-bye.

They took him to the barracks the very next day, as he was now completely recovered.

‘Those were happy times,’ he said. ‘There was nothing to do but drink mate and play poker with the guards.’

‘But you don’t play poker!’ I said. It was just a sudden inspiration. Actually, I did not know whether he played it or not.

‘Oh, well, some card game or other,’ he replied, unruffled.

I was very surprised. I had always thought that chance, or circumstances, had made Morris an archetypal sort of person; it never occurred to me that he, like other men, could enjoy simple pleasures.

‘You will probably call me a poor devil,’ he continued, ‘but I spent my time thinking about the woman. I was so frantic, I began to believe I had forgotten her—’

‘You mean you tried to imagine what she looked like, but couldn’t?’ I supplied.

‘How did you know?’ But without waiting for me to answer, he went on with the story:

One rainy morning they drove him to Palomar Air Base in an old open car. A solemn assembly of military men and officials greeted him there.

‘It looked like a wake,’ said Morris. ‘A wake or an execution.’

Several mechanics opened the hanger and pushed out a Dewotine, a very ancient pursuit plane.

Morris started the engine. He saw that there was not enough fuel for the minutes of flight, and that it would be impossible to reach Uruguay. For a moment he was disappointed; then he told himself gloomily that perhaps it would be better after all to die than to live like a slave. The plan had failed; it was no use to fly now; he felt an urge to say, ‘Very well, gentlemen. Have it your way!’ Out of apathy he let events take their course. he decided to try his new test-flight plan again.

He taxied for about five hundred yards and then took off. he completed the first part of the plan, but when he started to make the other maneuvers he felt a recurrence of the old nausea; he fainted, and heard himself utter an angry protest because he was fainting. Just before touching the landing field, he managed to set the plane right again.

When he regained consciousness, he was stretched out painfully on a white bed in a high-ceilinged room with bare white walls. He realized that he had been injured, that he was a patient in the Military Hospital. He wondered if it was merely a dream.

‘A dream you had at the moment of waking,’ I said, completing his thought.

He learned that the crash had occurred on 31 August. He lost his sense of time. Three or four days passed. He was glad that Idibal was in Colonia; he felt ashamed of having had that second accident. Besides, he knew that she would reproach him for not having flown directly to Uruguay.

‘When she hears about the accident, she will come back,’ he thought. ‘It will be only two or three days until I see her again.’

A different nurse was on duty now. She and Morris spent the afternoons holding hands. Idibal did not return. Morris began to worry. One night his anxiety reached a fever pitch.

‘You’ll think I’m mad,’ he said, ‘for wanting to see her so much. But I thought she had come back and had found out about the other nurse, and that was why she didn’t want to see me.’

He asked an intern to call Idibal. The man went away and did not come back. Much later (but actually that same night; it seemed incredible to Morris that one night could last so long) he returned; he told Morris that no one named Idibal worked in the hospital. Morris insisted that the man should find out when she had stopped working there. The intern came early the next morning and said the office was closed.

Morris dreamed of Idibal. He thought about her during the day. He began to dream that he could not find her. Finally he could no longer imagine what she looked like, or even dream about her. They told him that no one named Idibal “worked or had worked for the organization.” The new nurse suggested he might try to do some reading. They brought him the newspapers. But nothing interested him—not even the sports and racing section.

‘I was desperate—so I asked for the books you sent me.’

They told him that no one had sent any books.

(I almost committed an indiscretion; I almost admitted that I had not sent him anything.)

He thought they had found out about his escape plan and about Idibal’s part in it; that was why she did not come. He looked at his hands: the ring was not on his finger. He asked for it. They told him it was too late, that the main office (where it had been placed for safekeeping) was closed. He endured an atrocious and very long night, thinking that they would never give the ring back to him.

‘Thinking,’ I added, ‘that if they did not return the ring, you would have no trace of Idibal.’

‘I did not think of that,’ he replied honestly. ‘But I spent the night feeling as if I had gone mad. The next day they brought me the ring.’

‘Do you still have it?’ I asked, surprised by my own incredulity.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I keep it in a safe place.’

He opened a desk drawer and took out the ring. The stone was bright and clear, but it lacked fire. At its depth there was the bust of a woman with the head of a horse, carved in high relief; I suspected that it was the effigy of some ancient divinity. I know very little about jewelry, but I could see that the ring was valuable.

One morning some officers came into his room, followed by a soldier who brought in a table and chair, and a typewriter. He sat down and began to type as an officer dictated:

“Name: Ireneus Morris;

Nationality: Argentine;

Regiment: 3rd

Squadron: 121st

Base: Palomar.”

He thought it was natural that they dispensed with formalities and did not ask his name for that was, after all, his second statement.

‘I noticed,’ said Morris, ‘that they had made some progress.’

Now they accepted the fact that he was an Argentine, that he was in the Argentine Army, stationed at Palomar Air Base. But their return to sanity did not last long. They asked his whereabouts since 23 June (the date of the first accident) and where he had left the Breguet 304.

(‘The number was not 304,’ Morris explained, ‘it was 309.’)

He was surprised that they had made such a foolish mistake.

They asked where he had obtained the old Dewotine. When he said that the Breguet was surely somewhere in the vicinity since the crash on 23 June had occurred near Palomar, and that they should know how he had obtained the Dewotine since they themselves had provided it for a repetition of the test of 23 June, they pretended not to believe him.

But they no longer pretended that he was a foreigner or a spy. They accused him of having been in another country since 23 June. They were accusing him—when he realized it he began to grow angry again—of having sold military secrets to another country. The undecipherable conspiracy continued: but now his accusers had changed their plan of attack.

Gesticulatory and cordial, Lieutenant Viera walked into the room. Morris insulted him. Viera feigned astonishment; then he grew hostile.

‘Things seemed to be improving,’ said Morris. ‘The traitors were acting like friends again.’

General Huet visited him. Even Kramer paid him a visit. Morris was taken off his guard, and did not have a chance to react properly.

‘I don’t believe a word of the accusations, old man,’ said Kramer effusively.

They embraced warmly. Some day, Morris thought, I shall know what this is all about. He asked Kramer to go to my office.

‘Tell me, Morris,’ I ventured, ‘do you remember what books I sent you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ he said gravely. ‘But you mentioned them in your note, you know.’

I had not written Morris a note.

I took his arm and helped him walk to the bedroom. He opened the drawer of his night table and took out a letter written on stationery I did not recognize. He handed it to me.

The writing looked like a bad imitation of my own. My capital T’s and E’s are like block letters; the ones in the note were made with elaborate flourishes. I read:

I acknowledge receipt of your favor of the 16th, which reached me after some delay, due no doubt to an error in the address. I do not live on “Owen” Way, but on Miranda Street in the section of town known as Nazca. I assure you that I read your story with great interest. I am not able to visit you at this time; I am not well; but solicitous feminine hands are caring for me and before long I shall be better; then I shall have the pleasure of seeing you.

As a token of sympathy, I am sending you these books by Blanqui, and I recommend that you read the poem beginning on page 281 of Volume III.

I said goodbye to Morris. I promised to return the following week. The whole affair interested me and left me baffled. I did not doubt Morris’ sincerity; but I had not written him that letter; I had never sent him any books; I was not acquainted with the works of Blanqui.

And here let me make several observations about “my letter”:

1) The writer addresses Morris in a formal way. since Morris is somewhat untutored in literary matters, he did not notice that and accordingly he was not offended; but I have always spoken to him familiarly.

2) I swear that I am innocent of the phrase “I acknowledge receipt of your favor.”

3) The quotation marks around the Owen surprised me, and I should like the reader to take particular note of that.

My ignorance of Blaqui’s works is due, perhaps, to my reading plan. From my early youth I have been aware of the importance of organizing my reading to keep from being overwhelmed by the inordinately large production of literary works and to achieve, even superficially, an encyclopedic culture. That plan has guided my life: first I concentrated on philosophy, then on French literature, then on the natural sciences, and later on ancient Celtic literature, especially from the land of the Cymry (due to the influence of Morris’ father). Of course, medicine has occupied an important place throughout, but it has never interrupted the plan.

A few days before Lieutenant Kramer came to my office, I had finished the books on the occult sciences. I completed a study of the works of Papus, Richet, Lhomond, Stanislas de Guaita, Labougle, the Bishop of La Rochelle, Lodge, Hogden, and Albert the Great. I was especially interested in conjuration, appearances and disappearances. With regard to the latter, I shall always remember the case of Sir Daniel Sludge Home, who, at the request of the Society for Psychical Research of London, and before an assembly composed exclusively of baronets, made some of the passes used to cause the disappearance of ghosts—and immediately dropped dead! But I must express my doubts about the new Elijahs who reputedly vanish without leaving traces or corpses.

The “mystery” of the letter induced me to read the works of Blanqui. I found him in the encyclopedia, and learned that he wrote on political subjects. Happily that was not incompatible with my plan: occult sciences are followed by politics and sociology. I observe such transitions to avoid mental stagnation.

Early the next morning I went to a book store on Corrientes Street. No one was there except a doddering old man, the clerk, who shuffled about inefficiently and pretended not to notice my presence. I rummaged around and finally found a dusty bundle of books bound in dark leather with gold titles and fillets: The Complete Works of Blanqui. I bought the lot for fifteen pesos.

There is no poetry on page 281 of my edition. Although I have not read the whole work, I believe that the passage in question is “L’Eternité par les Astres”, a prose poem; in my edition it begins on page 307 of Volume II.

I found the explanation for Morris’s adventure in that poem or essay.

I went to the western part of the city, to the section known as Nazca. I spoke to the storekeepers; t here is no one living on Miranda Street who has the same name as I.

I went to Márquez Street. There is no such number as 6890; there are no churches. There was—that afternoon—a poetic light that made the grass of the lawns look very green, very clear, and the trees seem lilac-colored and transparent. The street is not near the railroad yards. It is near the Noria Bridge.

I went to the railroad yards. I found it difficult to cross the tracks near Juan B. Justo and Gaona Streets. I inquired how I could get to the other side of the yards.

‘Go down Rivadavia,’ they said, ‘until you come to Cuzco Street. Then cross the tracks.’

Naturally, there is no Márquez Street in that vicinity; the street that Morris calls Márquez must be Bynnon. Neither at 6890, not anywhere else on the street, are there any churches. The Saint Cajetan Church is not far from there, on Cuzco Street; that is of no importance: Saint Cajetan is not the right church. The fact that there are no churches on Bynnon Street does not invalidate my theory that it is the street mentioned by Morris—But I shall explain that more fully later.

I also found the towers that my friend thought he saw in an open, isolated spot: they are at the entrance to the Vélez Sársfield Athletic Club, at Fragueiro and Barragán Streets.

I did not have to pay a special visit to Owen Way: I live there. When Morris was lost, I suspect that he was in front of the dreary row of identical houses in the Monsignor Espinosa section, a modest neighborhood, and that his feet were buried in the white clay of Pedriel Street.

I went to see Morris again. I asked him whether he remembered having passed a street named Hamilcar or Hannibal on his memorable nocturnal expedition. He said that he did not. I asked him if there was some symbol near the cross in the church he visited. He looked at me quizzically, as if he thought I was joking.

‘You can’t expect me to remember a thing like that!’ he said finally.

‘But it might be important,’ I said. ‘Try to remember.’ And then, ‘Try to recall if there was something next to the cross,’ I insisted.

‘Perhaps there was,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps a—’

‘A trapezoid?’ I suggested.

‘Yes, a trapezoid,’ he said, without conviction.

‘Was there a line through it?’

‘How do you know?’ he exclaimed. ‘Were you on Márquez Street?’ Then he brightened perceptibly. ‘But wait—now I remember: Yes! There was a cross—and a trapezoid with a line through it—a kind of arrow.’ He seemed to be quite excited.

‘And did you notice a statue of a saint?’

‘Wait a minute, old friend,’ he said, trying to control his impatience, ‘I didn’t make an inventory!’

‘All right. Forget it,’ I said.

When his irritation had diminished, I asked him to show me the ring and to tell me the nurse’s name again.

I went home feeling quite optimistic. I heard sounds in my niece’s room; I presumed that she was putting her things in order. I did not tell her I was there, for I did not want any interruptions. I took the book by Blanqui, put it under my arm, and went out.

I sat down on a bench in Pereyra Park. Once again I read this paragraph:

There are probably infinite identical worlds, infinite worlds with slight variations, infinite different worlds. What I am writing now in this jail at Fort Toro, I have already written before and I shall write throughout eternity, on a table, on a paper, in a jail, that are all quite similar. In infinite worlds my situation will be the same, but perhaps the reason for my incarceration may gradually lose its nobility, until it becomes sordid, and perhaps my words may have, in other worlds, the undeniable superiority of the mot juste.

On 23 June Morris crashed with his Breguet in the Buenos Aires of a world that was almost identical to this one. The confusion that followed the accident kept him from noticing the obvious differences; to notice the less obvious ones would have required a perspicacity and education that Morris did not possess. He took off one gray and rainy morning; he crashed on an extremely bright one. The bumblebee in the hospital suggests summer; the “very hot weather” that overwhelmed him during the interrogation confirms it. (SEE NOTE BELOW)1

In his story Morris gives some distinct characteristics of the world he visited. In that world, for example, there is no Wales: streets with Welsh names do not exist in that Buenos Aires: Bynnon becomes Márquez and Morris, in the labyrinths of night and his own obfuscation, looks in vain for Owen Way. Viera, Kramer, Margaride, Faverio, and I exist there because we are not of Welsh origin; General Huet and Ireneus Morris himself, both of Welsh descent, do not exist (he merely came there by accident). The Charles Albert Servian of that world, in his letter, encloses the word Owen in quotation marks because it seems strange to him; and for the same reason the officers laughed when Morris said his name.

Grimaldi is still living at 971 Bolívar Street since no person named Morris existed in that Buenos Aires.

Morris’s story reveals that Carthage was not destroyed in that other world. That was why I asked my foolish questions about streets named Hannibal and Hamilcar.

Someone may ask how the Spanish language can exist if Carthage did not disappear. Shall I remind you that between victory and annihilation there can be intermediate degrees? The ring that I have in my possession is a double proof. It is proof that Morris was in another world: no expert, of the many I have consulted, recognized the stone. It is proof of the existence (in that other world) of Carthage: the horse is a Carthaginian symbol. I am sure that many people have seen similar rings in the Musée Lavigerie.

Further, the nurse’s name—Idibal, or Iddibal—is Carthaginian; the font with ritual fish and the trapezoid with a kind of arrow are Carthaginian; finally—horresco referens—there are the brotherhoods or circuli, as Carthaginian and malevolent as the insatiable Moloch. I denounce those groups of Carthaginians as the iniquitous precursors of the syndicate, the communist cell, and the secret societies formed by the individuals of some groups to undermine our civilization.

But to resume my theorizing, I wonder whether I bought the works of Blanqui because they were mentioned in the letter Morris showed me, or because the histories of these two worlds are parallel. Since there are no people named Morris in the other one, Celtic legends were not included in the other reading plan. The other Charles Albert Servian was able to advance more rapidly than I, he naturally reached political science before I did.

I am proud of him: with the few facts at his disposal, he explained the mysterious appearance of Morris. And so that Morris would understand too, he told him to read “L’Eternité par les Astres”. But I cannot understand why he would choose to live in the undesirable Nazca section!

Morris went to that other world and returned. He did not have recourse to my interplanetary missile or to the other vehicles that men have designed to help them transcend an incredible astronomy. How did he make his journeys? I opened Kent’s dictionary; after the word pass, I read: “A complicated series of movements made with the hands, by means of which appearances and disappearances are effected.” I thought that perhaps the hands were not indispensable, that the movements could be made with other objects—for example, with airplanes.

My theory is that the “new test-flight plan” coincides with some pass (on both occasions Morris seems to faint, and then changes worlds). In that other r world they thought he was a spy from another country; here, they explain his absence by saying that he flew to a foreign country to sell military information. He knows nothing of this, and thinks he is the victim of a heinous plot.

When I returned home I found a note from my niece on my desk. She said that she had sloped with that reformed traitor, Lieutenant Kramer.

‘I find solace in the knowledge that you will not be sorry to see me go, since you never had any interest in me,’ she said cruelly. Then, revealing the depth of her rancor, she added, ‘Kramer loves me; I am happy.’

I felt very depressed. I didn’t see any patients or leave the house for about three weeks. I thought somewhat enviously about my astral self, who also was confined to his home, but who was being cared for by “solicitous feminine hands.” I believe I know the touch of those hands; I believe I know what hands he meant.

Then I went to see Morris. I tried to talk to him about my niece (it seems I cannot keep from talking, incessantly, about her).

‘Is she the maternal type?’

I said that she was not. I heard him say something about the nurse.

The possibility of meeting a new version of myself is not what would induce me to travel to that other Buenos Aires. The idea of seeing a reflection of myself, like the picture on my bookplates, or of knowing myself, like the motto inscribed on them—these things do not interest me. but I am intrigued, perhaps, by the possibility of being able to enjoy an experience that the other Servian, fortunately, has not yet had.

But these are personal problems. I am also worried about Morris. Everyone here knows him and has tried to be patient with him; but his denials have become monotonous and his refusal to talk has angered his superiors. He is surely facing loss of rank or even the firing squad. If I had asked him for the ring, he never would have given it to me. he is stubborn, and would never have agreed to let me have this proof of the existence of other worlds. And besides, Morris had become insanely attached to that ring! Perhaps a gentleman (the infallible alias of the cambrioleur) would not condone my act; but the compassionate conscience will, I am sure. I am happy to say that all this has had an unexpected result: after losing the ring, Morris has been more willing to listen to my plan of escape.

We, the Armenians, are united. Within our society, we form an indestructible nucleus. I have good friends in the Army. Morris will be able to attempt a repetition of his accident. And this time I shall go with him!

C. A. S.

Charles Albert Servian’s story seemed utterly fantastic. I am not unfamiliar with the legend of Morgan’s chariot; the passenger tells where he wishes to go, and the chariot takes him there; but that is a legend. And, even if Captain Ireneus Morris had fallen into another world, it was unlikely that he would fall into that same world again.

I suspected that all along. Subsequent events confirmed that I was right.

Some friends and I planned and postponed, year after year, a trip to the Uruguay-Brazil border. Finally we felt we could not put it off any longer, so we made the trip this year.

On 3 April we were lunching at a country restaurant; afterward we planned to visit a very interesting fazenda.

An interminable Cadillac drove up, followed by a cloud of dust; a sort of jockey got out. It was Captain Morris.

He paid for our lunch and had a drink with us. I found out later that he was a secretary, or flunky, of a man engaged in contraband activities.

I did not go with my friends to visit the fazenda. Instead I stayed behind to talk to Morris. He told me about his adventures: skirmishes with the police; tricks to outwit justice and ruin his rivals; escapes made across rivers while clutching a horse’s tail; drunken orgies and women—Undoubtedly he exaggerated his cunning and his courage. I cannot exaggerate his monotony.

All of a sudden, I thought I had made a discovery. I asked questions; when Morris went away, I continued the investigation.

I found proof that Morris had arrived around the middle of June the previous year, and that he was seen in the area many times between the beginning of September and the end of December. On 8 September he rode in the horse races at Jaguarão; then he spent several days in bed after falling off a horse.

Nevertheless, during that same part of September, Captain Morris was hospitalized at the Military Hospital in Buenos Aires; the military authorities, his fellow Army officers, childhood friends—Dr. Servian and the now Captain Kramer—and General Huet, his old family friend—all of them swear to it.

The explanation is obvious:

In several almost identical worlds, several Captain Morrises went out one day (here it was 23 June) to test airplanes. Our Morris, deciding to flee, escaped to Uruguay or Brazil. Another Morris, who left from another Buenos Aires, made some “passes” with his plane and found himself in the Buenos Aires of another world (where Wales did not exist and where Carthage did exist; where Idibal is waiting now). That Ireneus Morris took off in the Dewotine, again made the “passes”, and crashed in this Buenos Aires. As he looked exactly like the other Morris, even close friends were deceived. But he was not the same man. Our Morris (the one who is in Brazil) took off on 23 June in the Breguet 304; the other one knew perfectly well that he had tested the Breguet 309. Then, with Dr. Servian, he tries the passes again, and disappears. They may have reached another world; but it is less probable that they will find Servian’s niece and the Carthaginian girl.

Perhaps Servian was correct in quoting Blanqui’s theory of the plurality of worlds; having a more limited background, I should have preferred to propose the authority of a classic: “…according to Democritus, there are infinite worlds, some of which are not only similar but perfectly identical.” (Cicero, Academica, II, XVII); or: “Here we are in Bauli, near Pozzuoli; do you think that now, in an infinite number of exactly identical places, there may be people who have the same names as we, who have received the same honors, who have experienced the same things, and in mind, age, and appearance are identical to ourselves, who are discussing this same subject together, just as we are doing now?” (Idem, II, XL).

Finally, for readers who are accustomed to the old notion of planetary and spherical worlds, the journeys between the Buenos Aires of different worlds will seem incredible. They will wonder why the travelers always arrive at Buenos Aires and not other places, like oceans or deserts. My only reply to such a question is that perhaps these worlds are like bundles of parallel spaces and times.

1 In Buenos Aires the seasons are reversed, and therefore June would be the beginning of winter. (Translator’s Note)