The new story of Marcelo Birmajer: The voice of the dead (first part)

I was in seoulSouth Korea. It was 2006 and I had come to present my book stories of married men in Korean. Several members of the publisher came to greet me, but the translator was embarrassed: the title was also shown in Spanish, on the cover – next to the title in Korean – and she had written stories instead of stories.

But I sent him to say that in another translation it had been even worse and on the cover they had put stories of castrated men. With this humor the mess was solved, the translator joined the welcome committee and finally we all had lunch together in an underground sushi restaurant, where the treats were passed on a rotating belt, each with a color from which the price. luckily I didn’t deal with. I suspect that for the value of one of those saucers today you can buy an appliance in Buenos Aires.

In any case, the next day in the morning, before preparing to visit a bookstore – gigantic and crowded – I received a disturbing e-mail. She called me “Sir” and my last name, he made it clear to me that he wrote to me from the dead. He didn’t say “the afterlife” or any other subterfuge. Although the very expression: “I am writing to you from the dead” (in lowercase) is in itself a subterfuge or an understatement. Unless it’s real and there’s no other way to tell.

Initially I feared a threat. But she couldn’t find a suitable culprit. Nor the corresponding guilt. We all have some while we live, which apparently was no longer the case with my interlocutor. I proposed coordinating a newspaper that would have a title From below, whose signatures and authorities would in any case be deceased persons. They had found a way to communicate. The email address was Desdeabajo @ and a server at the time. And he signed the Editorial Committee from below; but the tone was that of an individual addressing me personally, not without a certain (unjustifiable) hierarchical nuance.

Despite the absurdity of the email, the first thing that came to my mind to ask him was what was the role of a coordinator in a matter like this, unless walking into that exchange you end up finding out, like in the movie. Sixth Sensethat somehow I had inadvertently joined that guild.

But I preferred not to answer directly, pretend he was an aimless madman and go to the bookstore, one of the greatest honors I had lived up to then in my existence (if you can still call it that) as a writer.

The next day, even though I hadn’t forgotten the message from the afterlife, its impact had greatly diminished, and I had breakfast in the hotel lounge, Milanese-style fried shrimp and kimchi, along with an array of unfamiliar vegetables, craving a croissant. or bread with butter, I confess. But as soon as I got back to my room to pretend to work, a new email from my would-be contractor clarified new points in this regard.

The newspaper, which in the future intended to become a newspaper, was to be directed by Arancio Luminelli – the name, unlikely, sounded familiar to me -; The money would be delivered to me at the 38th parallel, the impassable military border that divided the two Koreas. Breakfast, already indigestible, plunged into my stomach like a Kim Dynasty missile.

What would my grandmother have advised me in a case like this? Go with the flow. If you haven’t turned it off with silence, let me show you her cards. The fear phase is over: now it is necessary to understand. I turned to my grandmother because she was one of my few possible allies on that side. My father would have simply shrugged.

So I asked why the money was needed and if the newspaper, at that early stage, would include the great national, and why not international, writers from the fifth of the ñato (I used that metaphor, as a way, unsuccessfully, to lower the exchange tension). The answer came half an hour later.

The money was used to pay for the newsroom building, computers, reels of paper, and printing machines. Until then, the newspaper’s management committee had managed to communicate by post, but for all other tasks it would need the cooperation of the living.

Unfortunately, the prominent authors contacted had refused to be included in the project, both because of ideological dissent – the newspaper ran a strong “national and popular” line – and because they believed that reappearing in that way diminished the prestige it deservedly earned in its premiere. residence on earth.

As for foreign companies, they preferred to bet on domestic ones. And why me? I insisted on a new email. In this case, they revealed to me where he remembered the name and surname Arancio Luminelli. He was a neighbor of my grandfather on Calle Sarmiento, whom I had visited between the ages of five and twelve. An Italian anarchist who from time to time appeared at the end of the corridor, calling meetings of revolutionary consortia and reading his social poems.

sang the ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti with an addition of his own, which required the death of merchants in general. Sung in the Once neighborhood, her version amounted to a discreet declaration of war. But the rest of the neighbors found him nice; My grandfather paid no attention to him. Arancio was married to a much younger woman who looked younger in her forties because she was by her side. She is beautiful in herself, impetuous but modest in her presence.

Why did you choose me as your coordinator? I once asked him why he mentioned death so often in his writings about him. And I knew they had translated me into Italian. The marriage of these two circumstances, the intermediary explained to me, had decided Luminelli to summon me.

I had also written a novel called the obituary club, he added as an indisputable auction. On the 38th parallel, a “comrade” would have given me the suitcase with the money, he repeated.

(This story will end next week)

POS