ERNESTO ESCOBAR ULLOA
FLORAL GAMES
excerpt from the novel Horizonte tardío
See the original Spanish
I didn't know why it suddenly started to bother me that they called me Martin. They called each other by their last names, but they were just as they were. I couldn't be myself if they called me Martin. I was hardly ever myself. I went around pretending to have more than I really did: self-confidence, security, emotional stability. As I told you, when Mercado left, the first time they called me Martin, I told them that's not my name, call me Zero, nobody calls me Martin. Why did I do it? I don't know. But your buddy called you Martin, Ruiz said.
Precisely because of that, I said, because he wasn't my buddy. My buddies call me Zero. We thought he was your buddy, Muñoz said.
Buddy, as in a real buddy, no. He's just a schoolmate. We ran into each other on the bridge by chance.
And why do they call you Zero?
Of course they would ask. Once again, time to omit, censor, and dress up the same old story, which you probably don't know and will want me to tell you, but I'll tell it to you before you wake up, so you won't bug me with questions.
Martin is my last name, I told them. My first name is Ezra. But nobody calls me Ezra. Everyone calls me Zero.
It all began when I moved and changed schools. Suddenly, I became what I feared most: the new kid. I found myself in the place that terrified me the most: the center of attention. On the first day of school, as soon as the roll call is heard, the first thing my classmates whisper is that I have a girl's name. I listen, sweating cold. I go out for the first recess, and without having gained anyone's confidence, they start calling me Elsa, Elba, Emma, Eva—names that they think sound like Ezra. Days go by, and someone, I don't know if out of pity or to turn the girl into a tomboy—I think more likely the latter— replaces the "a" with an "o," and out of their mouth comes Ezro. A game begins where they rearrange the letters to call me Orze, Roze, Zore, Rezo, until one of them says Zero, and the burst of laughter comes to a screeching halt. It was as if they had discovered the guillotine and a hundred new victims to test it on—or my true identity. The whole process didn't even last two months. Two or three years later, another new kid arrived, and I realized how rare it was for there to be something new at that crappy school, where most of the students had been together since preschool—what they call parvulario here—and year after year, the same faces reappeared in the same classrooms, and sometimes, after school, in the same neighborhoods. That was my experience. My new neighbors turned out to be the same people I shared the schoolyard with and sometimes the classroom.
"What school was it?" Ruiz asked. Mercado had answered that question before, but not only did Ruiz not remember, no one did—not even me.
"Dorian Gray," I said, just to say something that sounded familiar. Good thing there was no Google back then to check anything.
"Is that what it was called?" Muñoz asked, doubtful. I meant to say Oscar Wilde, but whatever.
"Yeah," I said, "that's what it was called."
"Is it close to your house? In what neighborhood?" Quispe asked, with that sharpness always on the lookout for information.
"In Surco," I said.
Surco is so big that saying something is in Surco means nothing; there are as many social classes in that district as in all of Peru. I didn't explain that I had gotten into a kicking and punching scuffle with everyone who teased me about my name, tirelessly, for weeks. I also didn't tell them that I couldn't wait to shake off the nickname Zero, which was proving materially impossible. At first, it had obviously been better than any girl's name, and then, over time, it acquired a certain charm, you know, eccentricity, which is very important when you're not particularly good at anything. But by fifteen or sixteen, you start wanting to grow up, to leave the kid behind, to use a presentable name.
But no matter who I introduced myself to as Ezra, regardless of their sex or age, if they ended up meeting anyone from my circle, I automatically stopped being called Ezra and was back to Zero, which they found way funnier. It even happened on the soccer fields. I'd introduce myself as Ezra to the referee, and then the guy would hear, "Zero, over here! Zero, pass it! Zero! Zero!" and when I least expected it, as I approached with my hands behind my back: "Zero, next time, you're out. Got it? I won't say it again, straight red, fair play." Bullshit the referees would say so they wouldn't lose control of the games. That's what we played for, to make them lose control and bust their balls. But I'll tell you more about that later.
When I arrived in Spain, where no one knew me, I finally started using my name. I never imagined that a year and a half after that trip to Puerto Fiel, I would start being Ezra. Over the years, I now feel like I'm two people, Ezra here, Zero there. Completely reconciled with Zero, I associate it with what marks you for life. In fact, now I like it.
"And where did Ezra come from?" asked Munoz.
"Wait," I said, "hold on, I haven't told you that my full name is Ezra Martin Yauri. Many people think that Ezra Martin is a kind of compound name, but Martin is my first surname, and Yauri is the second. By the way, do you know Martin Yauri? He's a big shot in the Supreme Court, he has the same name as me, only Martin is his first name and Yauri his first surname. Who would have thought that the confusion would save my life once in university. I suppose I'll have to tell you that story later, too."
"Every day you say the same thing," Aurora comments, apparently shivering from the cold. But it's not cold.
In school, you called friends by their first names and acquaintances by their surnames, that's why Mercado called me Martin. In matches, if I had to be captain because the first captain had been sent off or substituted, the referee would say: "Surname, sir, not first name." "I've already told you, sir, Martin." "And your first name?" "Ezra." "What kind of name is that?"
A while ago the doctors came and I had to go for a walk. Near the clinic, I discovered a pizzeria that looked good. When I came back, they told me it was better for me to go home, that the patient needed rest. Then another doctor came in and asked if I wanted to stay; he didn't see any problem.
What I didn't tell them was that I was named Ezra because of Pound. Why bother? The story was too long for three guys who wouldn't have related to it at all. Pound's Cantos fell into my mother's hands the same day I was born, as a gift from a distant uncle from the part of the family that had the good sense to stay in Huanchaco, in Trujillo. Uncle Ezequiel walked down from there on foot for who knows how many leagues and bought the second-hand book at a little stall below the hospital, for a few coins that luckily were still in circulation.
"No more discussion!" said my mother without even opening the book. "Ezra." And she hugged my uncle, who that night was finally able to sleep in a bed, at my house. The relief of stopping the argument with my father about what to name me was so great that they didn't bother to find out who the heck Pound was. Until I was thirteen or fourteen, he was simply the author of the book that no one understood, that was forgotten, gathering dust on a shelf, after my sister and father had cleared out the library, taking the best books to their rooms. I started to find out who Pound was one day when a new English teacher arrived at school, a certain Mr. Valencia, who, while taking attendance, said: "Aha! Ezra, like Pound!"
"You've never told me that," says Aurora, opening one eye. "When was that?"
"In my third year of high school, shortly before my grandmother Lola died."
I remember it well because until then, death had never come so close to me.
I was stunned, I couldn't pay attention to a single word in the next forty-five minutes of class, thinking that this new teacher, who was chubby like Santa Claus and would spend the hour munching on piononos, knew the true identity of the enigmatic Ezra Pound, someone no one in my circle had the slightest idea about. Of course, back then it wasn't like now, where you can just Google everything and find it all in an instant, even the name you're going to give your children, which would have been very useful in my time. At home, we had some encyclopedias, but Pound wasn't in any of them. And we didn't have intellectual relatives versed in English philology, nor budding poets seeking inspiration outside of Spanish, not even failed poets. Just failures. Every time I asked why they named me that, they would just point to the little book, and I had to be content with that. Today, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had opened the little book and read "I grow a white rose, in July as in January" or "I will die in Paris with a downpour, a day I already remember." In fact, weeks before the Valencia incident, one day when we went to do a geography project on a country called Tanzania, at Huguito's house, flipping through an encyclopedia and seriously considering ditching the project for some Atari games, I accidentally found the surname Pound. I was flipping through the pages quickly—P, Q, R, S, T—and... hold on! I went back to P, read: "1. Pound: unit of weight equivalent to 16 ounces. Currency in various countries. 2. Pound, Ezra Loomis (1895-1972): American poet, translator, editor, and propagandist, whose life was surrounded by controversy, known for his Cantos (1925-1960), an epic version of the history of civilization."
"Nothing else?" says Aurora, rubbing the back of her neck, making a gesture of pain.
"Nothing else. Do you want anything?" I say, heading towards a chair by the window.
"Mmmmm..." I hear her mumble lazily, curled up in the sheets.
At that age, I understood "propagandist" to mean that he made propagandas, which is what we call ads over there, so I assumed that, besides being a poet, he was also in advertising. And as for "his life was surrounded by controversy," I suppose I just didn't give it much importance.
"Professor, good morning." I approached Valencia's desk at the end of class, while outside my friends shouted, "Zero, suck-up! Zero, brown-noser!"
"I wanted to ask you a little something, please"—in Lima, we talk like that, with "wanted," "a little something," "please." "What do you know about Ezra Pound?"
Valencia looked at me, puzzled, opened the drawer, took out some sweets—gansitos, piononos, sublimes—and laid them out on the table, saying, like a kid showing off his toys: "It doesn't matter so much who he was, young man, what matters more is what he wrote. Want some?" He kindly offered me his sweets, with a smile that was both kind and a bit clueless.
"One of the most spectacular and brilliant failures in literature, according to a review I'm reading on my phone. That fits your stories... " says Aurora, poking her head out from the sheets.
"I thought you were sleeping, you little fucker—"
"What did he say? Tell me."
"He took me by the shoulder and, while chewing his gansito, said: 'There are people, son"—he spoke to me like a father—"whom we must measure by their achievements, by their great contributions; we cannot demand more from them. Ezra Pound contributed to the English language with poetry of high sonority and lyricism, very rich, flavorful, substantial. A delight. If in his personal life he made mistakes, remember that to err is human and we cannot judge him, only God judges. Remember? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
"What mistakes, professor?' I asked.
"Mistakes, hmm, mistakes," he repeated, hesitating, as if unsure whether he should say what he clearly had an irresistible urge to share—just as irresistible as the little farts that escaped when he leaned to one side in his chair.
"Have you heard of fascism, son?" he continued, lowering his voice as if about to reveal a secret. "Do you know what it is?"
"It rings a bell, but I have no idea, professor," I said.
"Of course something like that couldn't be hidden from you," he sighed, thoughtfully, "but on the other hand, it's understandable." Leaning back in his chair, he asked, "Haven't your parents told you anything?"
"No, professor," I said, "my parents are very busy..."
If you wanted to get something out of the teachers at school, that trick worked—saying your parents were too busy would soften them up. Valencia glanced at the class list, where there was a little blue dot next to my name, and said: "It's important to know the truth, son, I won't deny or refute that. But many times, the truth, like now, lacks substance. It's like a dry flan or a panettone without raisins. It's useless."
"And what is the truth, professor?"
"Nothing bad, son. Pound was a controversial writer, like so many others. Celine, for example, who I don't think you'll study in French, but you'll have time to read him. Both of them supported the... "—he paused, took a huge bite of pionono, and swallowed with difficulty—"Where the heck are you in World History?"
"The French Revolution," I said.
"Mmmm... Far, far away."
"What did they support, professor?"
Valencia finally decided to continue: " ... Italian fascism and German Nazism; I see you have a long way to go to get there."
He added a few more things, but the word "Nazism" made me lose track. I felt nauseous, a kind of shock, as if I had been hit by a right hook from Mike Tyson and the sky had suddenly clouded over, and in the middle of that cloud, I was left wandering, groggy, shaken like a maraca, like an insect drowning in the whirlpool of a toilet. When I regained the ability to speak, I heard a word I didn't understand:
"Sorry, his antisemi—what?"
"Antisemitism, son, sooner or later we all make mistakes in our political ideas and, I repeat, we cannot be judged for that. Europe was wrong, the whole world was wrong. Read his poems, reconcile with him, learn to love his poetry, to discover the history of humanity through the beacon of poetic language."
He hurriedly began to pack his things into his briefcase. Like someone who throws a cigarette in a forest and flees after starting a fire, noticeably regretting not having been able to contain himself.
"If you don't understand it," he added, "bring it to me and I'll explain it to you. And if you don't like it, there's always Jose Santos Chocano." And standing up, holding his briefcase in one hand and raising his pionono with the other, he declaimed:
Amidst the decisive roar of battle,
the horses with their chests
trampled the Indians and pressed on.Maybe it was true that anyone could be wrong in their political ideas, as Valencia said, trying to downplay the matter. Could it be compared to my grandmother Lola, a lifelong member of the APRA Party, who defended Alan Garcia until the end of his term despite hyperinflation and widespread corruption, while two of her own children emigrated to the United States after losing their jobs, savings, and hopes? It seemed like child's play compared to Pound and the fifty million dead in World War II and the six million Jews exterminated in the Holocaust. Nazism, fascism, antisemitism were all clearly and thoroughly detailed in any encyclopedia, with full-page or double-page spreads, with horrendous photos of all sizes and comments and opinions from all kinds of experts. If I hadn't gotten the details before, I was now overwhelmed with them. The only thing distracting me as I leafed through those dreadful pages was my parents' irresponsibility. Damn them! Was it really so hard to check before registering me with that infamous name on my birth certificate? Valencia's efforts to steer me away from the political issue fell on deaf ears. It would have been better if he had played dumb, offered me a pionono, and sent me on my way; or even better, forced me to eat it, because I hated piononos.
© Ernesto Escobar Ulloa 2024
English translation by editors of TBR
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Please see our conditions of use.Author Bio
Ernesto Escobar Ulloa, born July 1971 in Lima, Peru, is a Spanish teacher and cultural journalist. A contributor to Cuadernos Cervantes and Lateral, among others, he was the editor of The Barcelona Review and founder of Canal-L, a media outlet featuring video interviews with the most prominent writers of the moment. He is the author of the short-story collection Salvo el poder (Comba, 2015) and has been included in several anthologies. Horizonte tardío is his first and highly anticipated novel.
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