I hesitated between several titles before choosing.
“The Geography of Forgetting” seemed more poetic to me, but less descriptive, even meaningless. What would be a geography of oblivion? Risk: a mountain range, a lake, a sea, which we must cross to forget an event, a love, a friendship.
Each of the reliefs, concentrated in water or deserts, represents a stage on the journey to oblivion. It is a possibility, but much more for a poem than to give a title to this story.
The kind reader might wonder if, after more than ten years of publishing these columns, Still trying to find the exact title (at least in my opinion). This confession is the affirmative answer to that question.
I finally found the literal title: in fact, my memory deals, paradoxically, with the progressive forgetfulness of his subject by a Geography teacher. I don’t want to label or call the disease he suffered from with a handbook name, because I have the feeling that this event, which took place at the end of 1983, will diminish its singularity.
Professor Patgon -his real surname was of English origin-, rigorous and committed teacher of our land and to a lesser extent of the globe, class after class lost the rudiments of his knowledge. I think I was the first to find out.
In a casual reference, not directly related to the class he taught that day, Patgon has forgotten one of the provinces that made up Argentine Mesopotamia. Of course, I didn’t raise my hand to clarify. Nor did I reveal my discovery to the rest of the students.
But in later grades her bumps became more noticeable. Unexpectedly, he moved our capital to the south of the south, not as Alfonsín would have proposed, a few years later, for a political purpose, but for a mere discrepancy of his intelligence.
The metastasis of her anonymous disability was forging not only her memory but also her coherence. one day he confused South America with Asia and the class burst into involuntary laughter.. But after that collective outburst, even those who, because they were undisciplined, used to laugh at the teachers, remained silent and perplexed until the recreation bell.
Our teacher, Professor Patgon, he was freaking out. I suppose this way of defining it today is politically incorrect: I take refuge in the privileges of 1983.
There was a decisive detail for the unleashing of events: Patgon approved us. In his literal loss of consciousness and chain of inconsistencies, Patgon accepted all of our answers as good., in a one-time requirement or in a written exam. Always at least a seven, we put what we put.
Whatever was happening to him included compulsive approval. Students who also took recess (they’re on the list), can now show their parents that Geography wouldn’t be in the Ides of March (December was a guaranteed fail).
Thanks to this advantage, students spontaneously, jointly, We decided to keep Professor Patgon in front of the class in the geography lesson. and his developing madness, unbeknownst to other students or the tutors; nor, if possible, other teachers, much less the school authorities.
Fortunately Patgon, the Englishman, as he was called, was a pensioner, a hermit; and after the war of the Malvinas, in which he tacitly opposed Galtieri, they had stopped speaking to him directly. I suspect that he only kept his place at the college because Galtieri failed in that absurd military deception.
Patgon, for most of his career, had been a teacher who was austere in his communication, erudite in his learning, and demanding of his students. Also calm and always ready to clarify a point. He couldn’t be fooled and there was no reason to hate him. But as his reason gradually clouded, something in his mood changed.
The face now reflected a certain bonhomie, as if it were a cartoon drawing of a man in love. He was full of digressions, yes; and left statements without closing, but in the final configuration there was a hint of poetry, as in my useless title geography of oblivion; also humor or melancholy. At some point we found out that we were waiting for his lesson.
Our position has changed with Patgon: students between 16 and 17, we took care of him. We made sure that no one found out, that he no longer spoke outside the courtroom. On one occasion, Breder, a hell of a student, followed him into the staffroom, like a hidden guide, a guardian angel, to make sure he didn’t get out of hand in front of his colleagues.
In an unforgettable exhibit, Patgon unfurled a map of the Congo and started talking about women. Not necessarily love: he said, to the astonishment of the class, that she had suffered from syphilis, and that his father had been happy to know that he had already heard of the matter.
But that this infection left such a lasting impression on him that made it difficult for him to adjust to a stable relationship in the future (The incompatibility between experience and conclusion, in this case, was genuine and not part of his twilight madness.) He recommended that we try to be happy. That was his last school year. We never heard from him again. He left us all approved.
With the advent of democracy, his silent position on the Malvinas war was eloquently supported by many others. But in subsequent meetings with alumni of that course, I deduced a lesson that Patgon bequeathed to us and that we have only deciphered over time.
In no other subject had they tried to explain to us why we went to school. Because we learned, because we had to wake up early. Why, finally, should we be members of a society, why should we work and play by the rules? What, after all, was the meaning of life.
I don’t think, I’m sure, that no teacher, no adult, strictly speaking, was qualified to give us that answer. But no one had tried. I’m not saying Patgon consciously tried, but it did. Through a fault of rationality, a fault, as seismic cracks are called, the orange blossom of existence has reached us, a taste of mystery, the limelight of a background.
Each did what he could with his share of the treasure. For once, without having consented, each did his part in preserving and maintaining it. There is a geography of oblivion, after all, even if I can’t finish explaining it.
WD extension
Source: Clarin
