Lost Characters

Vicente Puchol

Chapter 1

And if the lack of any exit was the sign that we are not permitted to think of

an exit of any sort; that is, that we must simply establish ourselves in the

place that appears to be without exit, and to adapt ourselves to it, rather

than looking for the “habitual” exits?

MARTIN HEIDEGGER

Until I received the news that I had been sentenced to indefinite custody in the Penal

Institution for the Socially Maladapted, or PISM, and that I was to be transferred there

immediately, I had never even heard of the place. Don Pablo Jordán, my lawyer, tried to explain

to me how the PISM operated.

“It’s not an ordinary prison. It’s an institution for social rehabilitation, with two levels of

security. There’s an outpatient facility, where the inmates themselves are permitted to

determine the unit’s rules and regulations, and where they can even put forward candidates for

release by a panel of expert judges, outside the PISM.”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“There’s also an inpatient facility, where a team of psychotherapists, called ‘Inquisitors,’

designs a specific treatment plan for each inmate, depending on his or her rehabilitation needs.

Once the panel of Inquisitors declares that an inmate’s treatment is complete, the inmate is

released, regardless of the length of his or her sentence.”

He smiled reassuringly and went on, “Since you’re a normal person – a victim of

circumstance really – you’ll be released right away. The fact is, you’re lucky that you were

chosen to serve your sentence in the PISM.”

“Oh, is that so?” I asked, with cynical surprise. “And why have they chosen me?”

“I don’t know. Members of the PISM recommend which convicts should be sent there.

But their decisions are made according to secret criteria that the judges don’t even know.”

Admitting this, my attorney was unable to hide his discomfort.

“The PISM works on the principle of an open-ended sentence,” he continued, “which

means that the amount of time served depends on the inmate’s rehabilitation. The sentence

isn’t a punishment, they say, but a cure.”

I was surprised by my attorney’s explanations, but no more than he appeared to be. He

had lost a case that he should have won. At the beginning of that last conversation, he was

fearful and unsteady – perhaps he was casting about for the technical flaw in his ineffectual

defense – and we struggled to understand each other.

I pressed him for more information, “What’s the difference between the PISM and a

psychiatric facility?”

“The role of the PISM is to bring about a social cure and the rehabilitation of inmates

according to current norms. Its work is based on the firm conviction that laws must be obeyed –

and the role of a psychiatric facility is to treat mental illness, not to rehabilitate prisoners.”

He could see that I was perplexed by this distinction, so he took another approach.

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“As soon as the Inquisitors see that you’re normal, you’ll be released. That wouldn’t

happen at an ordinary penitentiary. And in the meantime, you’ll feel free inside the walls.”

“And you?” I asked. “You wouldn’t be wondering now if I’m normal or not, would you?”

My attorney interpreted this comment as an attack.

“No! I already told you that I didn’t have any doubts about it. That’s why it’s only logical

that you’ll be released right away.”

“Logical or just?” I insisted, fussily.

At this, my attorney, who was fat and shortsighted, stared at me through his thick

lenses. He had fully recovered his self-confidence.

“Justice doesn’t exist. It’s a Platonic ideal, which the Judeo-Christian tradition grafted

onto Roman law. Ever since, humanity has raised palaces to justice. But in lay societies, only the

law exists. And the law, when there is a conflict of interest, protects whatever the legislator has

given preference to. Naturally, for attorneys, our clients’ interests are always the most

important…”

He smiled, satisfied at his speech. But I had the impression that he was professionally

incapable of understanding my serious misgivings, and that my presumed normality was for

him a legal matter like any other. Overwhelmed by pride and indignation, I lost my head.

“I don’t understand the law – the only thing I know is that among the lot of you, I’ve

been found guilty!” Slamming the door, I stormed out of his office.

On the way home, my fury, so recently unleashed against my attorney – who really had

done the best he could – gave way to sorrow. If the judges had found me guilty, why would the

Inquisitors find me innocent, when they were the ones who had recommended that I be

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remanded to the PISM? Fear of their criteria – unknown even to the judges – filled me with

anguish. I thought, “These Inquisitors will be tenacious types, they’ll have a completely

opposite view on life from mine, they’ll want to make me over according to their model, they

will be fanatics…”

I locked myself in my apartment to wait for the police to take me to the penitentiary. I

was too agitated to eat or sleep. I paced from one room to another, looking for an exit, turning

the record player on and off with irritation. From time to time, with my muscles aching from

thrashing about so much, I fell onto my bed, dizzy and confused. Unable to cling to a single solid

thought, I wandered, lost, in fifty square meters.

When the police knocked at the door, I was still disoriented. A uniformed officer pulled a

document out of a case on his belt and read it to me. It was the Order for Enforcement of

Judgment. I was so discouraged that I could barely pay attention. After they’d handcuffed me,

they put me into a patrol van. The peepholes, which were covered with heavy grating, gave no

hint of what was outside. For hours, I traveled inside a strong box, as if I were a dangerous

fugitive.

All official consideration for me was finished: the pre-trial release, the procedural

problems and pauses that had dragged my trial out for so long that I’d begun to dream that the

judges had forgotten me, the much-debated doubts about the culpability of my behavior at the

scene of events. The scene! The idea made me shudder. I was overcome by a feeling of

alienation. This attack on my sense of reality was making me crazy.

When the van finally stopped, the doors to my cubicle were opened. I couldn’t reconcile

myself to the idea that I had traveled here in a patrol van, which was an affront to my status as

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a member of the middle class. It was nightfall, and a group of armed men trained a flashlight on

me, ordered me to get out, and frisked me. This was beyond the pale, calling into question as it

did the trustworthiness of my guards, and I was forced to acknowledge with great sorrow that I

was entering a pitiless center of power. After they had verified that I carried no contraband,

they pushed me back into the van and slammed the door. I was unable to make out any details

of the prison in the darkness. We slowly crossed what must have been a courtyard and went

down a ramp.

When I exited the van again, a semicircle of uniformed men trained their machine guns

on my guards and me. I was nauseated by their distrust. I was a peaceful citizen, despite my

sentence, and my guardians were officers of the law. The court officer remained calm. He was

of slight build, with a pasty complexion and an absent gaze. It seemed that he was as much a

victim of circumstance as I. We were in the basement of a fortress, surrounded by cement walls

and illuminated by neon bars that gave the faces surrounding us an inhuman paleness. The

elevator doors opened and one of the machine-gun bearing guards moved quickly into the

back. Next, the court officer and I were pushed in, followed by two more guards. No one spoke

as the elevator rose through the building. I noticed that the court officer also felt he was being

closely watched, but he understood and forgave the guards’ uneasiness. After all, he was an

officer, and I was a prisoner.

Getting out of the elevator, we walked single-file down a long corridor. It was a sad

procession. I felt humiliated by my handcuffs and an oppressive desperation overcame me. A

phrase from the Gospel – Race of vipers! – briefly enraged me, but I calmed myself again,

surrendering to the inertia of my destiny. I thought, “They’re going to brainwash me, blur my

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conscience, make me swallow their morals, and they won’t give up until I’ve assimilated

everything. Flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood.” Again, the New Testament came to mind,

enraging me. The procession stopped in front of a large, translucent glass door and the court

officer and I entered an administrative office.

The ceiling was as high as a factory’s. On the back wall there was a control panel like

those found in airports, and the room was filled with desks, computers, and electronic

equipment. Men and women dressed in white coats swarmed around the various devices. Most

of them wore blue badges; some wore gold. The court officer strode confidently toward a large

desk bearing the nameplate “Auditor General,” but by the time he got there, his proud

demeanor had dissolved. After a respectful silence, he took a clear folder out of his document

case and humbly handed it to the man behind the desk. Unlike the court officer, the Auditor

was muscular and ruddy, but his gaze was oddly sleepy. He carefully read the top document

through the transparent cover and when he lifted his eyes from the page, another man,

standing behind the desk waiting for this signal, took the folder from the Auditor, removed the

document he had just read, and walked away with it. This time, the Auditor opened the cover

and read my sentence in depth.

While he was engaged in this task, I noticed that the staff’s badges were rhomboid in

shape, and this insignificant detail intrigued me. I considered that all insignia were by nature

pretentious, and that if the PISM aspired to distinguish itself from similar institutions, it would

be obliged to adapt an extravagant one. My mind wandered among emblems and symbols –

just as dreams do, they all have a meaning. In this case, what meaning could a rhombus have?

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The court officer, believing he understood the cause of my puzzlement, generously offered an

explanation. “All the machines here communicate with one another,” he said kindly.

Forgetting for a moment the enigma of the rhombus, I shifted my attention to the room

around me. The court officer was correct – it was a hive of electronic activity. The document

extracted from my case file was generating a great deal of administrative energy, and I noted

more movement at certain desks than at others. Relying on the agent’s friendliness, I dared to

say, “It’s a computer room, of course.”

My comment surprised him. He must have admired those machines without really

understanding what they were. Perhaps he was still obliged to struggle with dossiers in hard

copy and knew well the trouble that a lost document could cause. It wasn’t surprising that he

would find the idea of a file going missing in a computerized office impossible to believe. He felt

compelled to tell me, “Documents are never lost here, they are merely transformed.”

“That’s the law of conservation of energy, applied to administrative organization,” I

replied.

He smiled happily, but I couldn’t help unloading my frustration on him. “The problem is

that these electronic devices are programmed by human beings, and a computer crash can

cause problems for anyone,” I continued.

The court officer’s attitude shifted to that of a rifleman whose unit was under attack.

“They have corrective mechanisms,” he spat.

“I know very well what a system-wide crash looks like,” I countered.

The Auditor nodded solemnly. My sentence was in order. Of course it was! His assistant,

who had silently returned to wait behind him, quickly handed him a freshly printed card to sign.

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The Auditor signed it without looking at it and his assistant gave it to the court officer, who

gazed at it for a while – he was within his rights as an administrator, after all – as if it were a

fine engraving. Then he carefully tucked it into his document file, bowed to the Auditor, and

without a word to me – Had he forgotten our recent friendly exchange? – turned on his heel

and walked proudly away, satisfied at having done his duty. He was an honest man, although a

bit cold. The Auditor looked right through me, his eyes revealing a hint of drowsiness. I made a

restrained gesture in the hopes of rousing him, but he didn’t react. Then I realized that for him I

was only a criminal, and I felt a stab of sorrow. I didn’t see myself that way at all. The Auditor’s

assistant signaled for me to follow him, and he led me between two rows of desks toward a

door. There, a man wearing a triangular badge stepped toward him and the assistant handed

me over. As he took me into the next room, the man with the triangle said, “Wait here.”

The waiting room contained nothing but a row of wooden chairs. Outside, in the

administrative office, they were transforming my sentence and my criminal history into

digitized data, before sending them to the Inquisitors who would be charged with reforming

me. Anguish again overcame me. Nobody wants his personality adjusted. After a while, two

men who were also wearing triangular badges indicated that I was to accompany them into a

smaller room whose walls were covered with white tiles. Florescent light bounced off the tiles

so strongly that I had the sensation of being bombarded with tiny particles. They removed my

handcuffs and made me undress. They shut me, naked as a newborn, in a sort of strongbox,

where I was sprayed first with a harsh liquid, then with a refreshing one, and finally, I was

blasted dry with a gust of hot air. When I came out, they gave me a cup to urinate in, extracted

a blood sample, and took my blood pressure. They next moved me into another room, where

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two more men, wearing pentagonal badges, were waiting for me. There was no room for

doubt; the increased complexity of the pentagon indicated they held a higher rank than the

men with the triangles. One of the Pentagons examined my genitals and the other used a

magnifying glass to inspect the condition of my skin. After this examination, the two Triangles

pushed a gurney into the room and ordered me to lie down. They restrained me and rolled me

into a dark room that was filled with medical equipment. The Triangles stood waiting while the

Pentagons began to work. It was clear that the latter worked well together. Various electronic

devices were passed over different parts of my body, each generating its own buzzing sound.

The Pentagons were at the controls, making their observations jointly. Now and again, they

exchanged a friendly comment. I let myself be swayed by their good humor and ventured, “Am

I well?”

“At present, there are no foreign objects visible,” came the reply.

“There’s only one foreign object here, and you’ll never locate it because it’s invisible –

my mind,” I joked.

“We aren’t interested in your mind, we’re only interested in your physical brain.”

“Tell me, why are you all so fond of polygons?” I ventured.

They didn’t answer, but one of the Triangles stepped forward and said, “You’d better

shut up.”

“But you haven’t even had the courtesy to give me a drape for my penis,” I protested.

“All right, that’s enough,” said one of the Pentagons, abruptly. The show was over.

The Triangles waited until the last device had been stored and then pushed the gurney

out of the room.

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“Those Pentagons must have committed a procedural irregularity. They were very

brusque in their examination,” I observed.

No one paid any attention to me. Passing from the darkness of the x-ray room into the

shower of florescent light, I had to shut my eyes tightly.

“You wouldn’t have any sunglasses, would you?” I asked.

The Triangles did not answer; they undid my restraints and gave me an undergarment, a

shirt, a pair of rough cotton pants, and a pair of sandals. They ordered me to dress.

“But I only asked for a pair of dark glasses,” I complained.

One of the Triangles, squat and dark-skinned, stretched his dwarf’s neck as far as he

could toward me, frowning. But he said nothing. As soon as I’d finished dressing, they grabbed

me and dragged me onto a metal chair where they immobilized me by tightening shackles

around my arms and legs.

“I’m a journalist,” I said. “Be careful what you do to me.”

“Hook him up.”

The Triangles began to cover my head, body, and limbs with cables that were connected

to a large electric device. When they had finished, two new Pentagons entered the room. I

asked them sarcastically.

“You’re not going to burn me at the stake, like the Inquisitors used to do with heretics,

are you?”

One of the Pentagons put his hands on his hips and looked at me.

“You’d better gag him. He’s a real chatterbox.”

“He’s a journalist,” the short-necked Triangle helpfully clarified.

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As the Triangles put the gag into my mouth, the Pentagons made comments, never

taking their eyes off of me.

“These intellectuals are always trying to feed us the same garbage,” said one.

“They think they can solve everything with the stroke of a pen,” added the other.

“They think they’re oracles.”

When the Triangles had finished their task, one of the Pentagons patted me on the

shoulder.

“Now we’re going to use a CAT scanner to examine your neural function. The Inquisitors

will be in charge of examining your dirty tricks.”

His colleague switched on the machine. The Triangles sat on a pair of stools and

watched while the Pentagons rushed around in continual consultation. I thought that the court

officer would have enjoyed this performance. He was a mechanic at heart; he would have made

an excellent Pentagon. After a while, one of the Pentagons ordered, “Remove the gag.”

The short-necked Triangle expertly untied the knot behind my head and pulled the gag

from my mouth.

“Have you made any earth-shaking discoveries?” I asked ironically.

No answer. The court officer would have said, “Calm down now.” The short-necked

Triangle was staring at me. I smiled at him, and he again stretched out his neck, pressing his lips

together.

“We’re finished here,” a Pentagon announced.

The Triangles jumped up as if they’d been shocked, and began to carefully remove the

cables. They next undid the shackles.

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“Let’s go,” they said.

Leaving behind the florescent-lit exam rooms, we walked down two hundred meters of

corridor and took an elevator. Its automatic doors opened on an empty room. It was immensely

silent – a rough rug muffled every footstep – as they led me down a row of cells. They pushed

me into one of them.

“I haven’t eaten,” I told them.

The short-necked Triangle made a face, and they both walked away without answering.

The cell was very narrow and simply furnished. There was a large window of translucent glass,

reflecting at this hour an intense blackness. I went to wash my face, but remembering my

recent and thorough disinfection, I stopped. Exhausted and faint, I opted to lie down instead,

leaving until the next day the freedom of initiative that my attorney had assured me was part of

the regime here. The temperature was perfect, and in a few minutes, I was sound asleep.

When I woke up, the cell was filled with an intense light. It must have been a beautiful

morning. I smiled. After washing up, I walked into the corridor. I was fiercely hungry. Outside, I

found only a troubling silence. All of the doors were locked, and nobody answered my knocks. I

spent a moment in the vestibule trying, in vain, to find the elevator button. At the end of the

corridor, I located an identical vestibule, but there was no elevator button there, either. I went

back to my cell and threw myself on my bunk. What were they going to do with me now? The

sun was beating against the window.

“Patience,” I told myself. “Until the administration has received the lab reports, they’ll

probably keep me in quarantine, so that I don’t start some sort of epidemic.”

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Hunger once again drove me to my feet. Officially, it had only been twelve hours since

I’d last eaten, although in reality twenty-four hours had passed. “It will always be difficult to

make computers align with the reality of human life, and those Pentagons who are in charge of

me seem to be guided by them like a flock is by its sheepdog,” I mused.

Communication with the outside world was completely forbidden in the PISM –

naturally, they’d taken my cell phone away. As I looked at the square of light it occurred to me

that, like the polygonal badges worn by the institution’s grim workers, it was a sign of an

institution overseen by geometric souls. In the past, prisons were both squalid and sterile, but

progress had – technically, at least – humanized some of them, like the PISM. It proposed the

rehabilitation of its prisoners, bringing them into harmony with current legislation and societal

expectations. Of course, these were at the mercy of continually shifting political ideas. The first

step was to remove the prisoners’ possibility of contemplating day and night.

My treatment appeared to begin with a study of my psychological reaction to isolation

in my cell, just as the Pentagons had studied my physical reactions the night before. The

sentence, “We aren’t interested in your mind, we’re only interested in your physical brain,”

made that obvious. I imagined there was worse yet to come.

After a few hours, my mood turned gloomier. I was famished, and yet nobody had

appeared to bring me a meal. I inspected my cell from top to bottom, discovering only a tiny

metal grate – an air conditioning vent – nearly at ceiling level. Outside, in the hallway and

vestibule, there was a series of small glass rectangles and cylindrical boxes mounted at regular

intervals high up on the walls. Could they be microphones, cameras, or radar transmitters?

There was no way of knowing, although I was certain that the whole complex was monitored by

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closed-circuit video. What Don Pablo Jordán had clearly told me was that the inmates lived in

an open regime, and that individual initiative was respected, although also carefully watched.

So it seemed to me that the most reasonable course of action was to continue to look for an

exit.

I found myself in the second vestibule staring at the elevator door as if it were a work of

art and I, a museum visitor. Suddenly, I spotted a double door off to one side. I pushed against it

and it opened into an enormous, windowless room. I entered and closed the door, plunging

myself into darkness. I started walking blindly, hesitantly, across the room, wandering lost and

puzzled. I found another set of double doors like the first, which also opened. I trudged on in a

pointless quest, crushed by the dark and empty space surrounding me. I had no idea where I

was. My head was spinning as if I were trapped in a nightmare. The only lights were red

pinpoints at wide intervals that seemed to measure the distance in the huge space.

More geometry! I remembered the court officer’s words: “All the machines here

communicate with each other.” The PSIM was an enormous machine and I was trying to

escape, fool that I was, from one of its cogs. Again, the court officer’s words came to me. “They

have corrective mechanisms.” That was it! The elevator worked via remote control, like a

garage door. They knew that I didn’t have access to a remote, so they weren’t worried that I’d

escape. It was useless to keep looking for a way out. I turned around and walked determinedly

back toward my cell.

Just what was the point of this huge suite of rooms? To make the inmates tremble in the

shadows? When I calculated that I’d walked further on my return trip than I had on my way out,

I stopped, dumbfounded. Was I lost? Were they trying to confuse me? I sleepwalked toward

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the glass rectangles, now lost in the darkness, and said loudly, “What can a man do when reality

stops making sense? You are making me doubt my senses! This isolation is too much – it’s

affecting my sanity. If it’s true that the PISM is only interested in bringing the maladapted back

into line with societal norms, you must be trying to unbalance me in order to push me towards

them. I don’t know how to fight the silence and darkness in these pointless rooms that lead

nowhere. The only thing I can do is to look after my mental health and wait, like a beggar, for

you to take pity on me.”

I slid to the floor and discovered with great surprise that its cold, smooth surface was

marked with small tire tracks. I scratched a bit and saw that the floor was slightly dusty.

Continuing my investigation, I found that there were many different kinds of tracks, nearly all of

them resembling the scratches that impetuous roller-skaters would make when racing down

the hallway. One in particular was an oblique line, perhaps the mark of a powerful standing

start like a lightning bolt, to judge from the depth of the scratch it had left behind. This

discovery made me think that perhaps the path I’d followed on my return had been diagonal,

and for that reason I was struggling to find the door. Could it be that I was sliding along the

hypotenuse? Now the PISM’s variously-shaped insignia made sense to me. They symbolized the

polygon formed by the institution’s different buildings. It was a mathematical penitentiary! The

cold tiles were numbing me, and I struggled to my feet convinced that the PISM held no infinite

straight lines. I knew that once I reached a wall, if I stuck close to it I would eventually find a

door.

Which door would it be, the one leading back to the vestibule, or one that opened onto

a dead-end? I felt like a drunken sailor looking for his bunk among the dark shapes in the hold,

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or a theologian hesitating between reason and anathema. I wandered breathlessly, aimlessly,

until my legs gave out and I fell to the floor. I crawled along like a worm, in search of a wall that

would, most likely, lead nowhere. But as was the case with straight lines in the PISM, its rooms

weren’t infinite either, and my arm finally bumped against a baseboard. I was overcome with

relief and exhaustion. The cold from the floor had worked its way into my kidneys and my

bones. A flashlight-bearing expedition wandered through the shadows of my mind without

finding me. In the midst of my delirium, I imagined a phantom patrol that had lost its way; I was

in the depths, unconscious, beaten down by a feverish sleeplessness, absurdly hobbled. I awoke

with a shout, moved closer to the wall, and began to creep forward again.

My fatigue and uncertainty led me to imagine that I was walking along the cornice of an

interior courtyard and my legs trembled, threatening to knock me down and into the void. But

how could that be if I’d just gotten up off the floor? It didn’t matter – I couldn’t see anything,

and the courtyard could loom up in front of me without warning. Had I lost my mind? After

being crippled by those fierce hours of panicky waiting, I was finally able to calm down a bit and

emerge from the horror that had overcome me, my muscles, dog-tired, refused to function. I

hung onto the wall and walked heroically along the cornice. At the same time, I was terrified by

the depths of the imaginary courtyard that I had not been able to reason away. I inhaled deeply

to fend off the dizziness caused by the pull of the void.

I fantasized about an Egyptian lost inside a pyramid, far behind a funeral procession that

had forgotten him, making his terrified way through the dark galleries, only to find that he had

been sealed inside for eternity. Burning his torch down to the end, he would wander up and

down endless passageways, destroying his fists pounding them against immovable stone walls,

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and shouting like a madman until he was hoarse. He would then return to the main burial

chamber to see himself reflected in the embalmed corpse lying there, and when his torch

guttered out, he would stretch out on the floor to let the last hours of his life slip by, taking

leave of his sanity in the face of death.

My anguish was pressing down on my poor, worn-out nerves. The lights of my own life

were dimming. I collapsed. When I came to, the smell of the floor tiles made me retch, but I sat

up, ready to use the last of whatever strength I still possessed. After all, I wasn’t lost inside a

pyramid! And with the clumsy haste of a fly beating against a windowpane, I rushed along the

imaginary cornice toward the door that I knew must be there somewhere. Just like the fly, I

banged into, not a windowpane, but a perpendicular wall, the side of a cube. I had passed from

linear geometry to spatial geometry!

Soon, I found a door, and moving forward while leaning against the wall I found another

and another, until I burst into the second vestibule, where I threw myself onto its soft carpet

and dozed for hours. When I woke up, I moved toward the elevator door and I questioned it as

if it were the Sphinx. As in a hallucination, its doors slid open. Looking closer, I noticed that

under my feet and hidden by the carpet just in the middle of the elevator opening was a

mechanism that, when stepped on, made the elevator doors open and close. I pressed my foot

on it a number of times, feeling the limitless joy of my surprise discovery, before stepping into

the elevator. I had no idea which of the numbered buttons to push, so I naturally chose one at

random and the elevator began to descend.

My breath quickened and I could barely stand upright. I was terrified that the doors

would open and I would find myself in a vestibule identical to the one I had just left. But when

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the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, I could see a platform pulsing with humanity.

Many of them were dressed as I was, while others were wearing white coats and triangular

badges. Astonished, I stepped out of the elevator. I didn’t dare take any initiative, despite what

my attorney had told me. Then I saw a long line of people waiting in front of a lighted sign that

read INFORMATION. As I took a place behind the last of them, I noticed that many of my fellows

were looking at me curiously. The women were dressed exactly like the men. It was well known

that in the PISM there were no barriers or differences between the sexes. (“Within its walls, you

will feel free,” my attorney had told me.) I waited my turn silently and shyly, with my hands in

my pockets and my head down. The inmates were talking, but I wasn’t paying attention to what

they were saying. I didn’t have the strength to listen or to speak. When it was my turn, I stood

in front of a woman wearing a rhomboid badge. She was seated behind a thick panel of glass

with a slot at the bottom, through which came her voice.

“What do you want?”

“I want to eat.”

She looked at me with administrative rudeness.

“Next.”

The inmate behind me, seeing that I hadn’t moved, shoved me out of the way. I turned

to speak to the Triangle who was closest to me and the people in line began to murmur.

“There you go – he’s going to rat him out.”

“And he just got here.”

“Well, he looks like he’s still wet behind the ears.”

An agile and alert Triangle approached me.

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“Where have you come from?”

“A deserted floor.”

The Triangle winked at the inmates in line and signaled me to follow him. They began to

cheer for me, mockingly.

“Bravo! Goal!”

“You’ll get far.”

“Because you’ve got a long way to go!”

The Triangle pushed open a door marked NO ENTRY and led me down a hallway lined

with glass doors. I felt that I was finally on the right path, but at the same time I was alarmed.

The Inquisitors were surely waiting for me in their secret offices. The Triangle took me to a

gilded Rhomboid who sat behind a desk, overseeing a group of blue Rhomboids, all busy at

different machines. He asked me, “Have you been exploring?”

The gilded Rhomboid’s team mocked me. Coming on top of the inmates’ derision, it

irked me. I said angrily, “No, but I’ve been explored.”

The Rhomboid didn’t bat an eye. I understood then that it was useless to adopt a

dignified attitude in an undignified place. I hurried to explain.

“I’ve been at the Institute two days, and after running a battery of tests on me, my

keepers left me in isolation. I managed to get out, and here you have me.”

The Rhomboid inhaled sharply through his nose. With the disdain of a superior bothered

by an inferior, he explained brusquely, “It wasn’t isolation. It was an Inquisition that failed.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“What’s your name?”

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“Jaime Villa.”

The Rhomboid turned to a computer and keyed in my name. On the screen, I read

“Fourth Community.” The Triangle grabbed my elbow and dragged me out of the office.

“Your Community is on the top floor. Push the button marked ‘four’ in the elevator.”

I stepped into the elevator, pushed the button, and in spite of my suffering, finally took

control of my destiny as an inmate.

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Chapter 2

The Fourth Community’s platform looked the same as the Third Community’s did. The

walls were blindingly white and an intensely bright light poured down from the ceiling lights. I

stood in line in front of the Information Office and this time, despite my exhaustion and lack of

morale, I made an effort to observe everything that surrounded me. The platform was

hexagonal, and on its walls were lighted signs reading Information, Technical Booths, Council of

Inquisitors, Inquisitor General, Grand Inquisitor, and Orderly Corps. The sixth wall of the

hexagon opened onto a gallery that was as wide as a street; inmates walked along it toward an

unknown horizon while orderlies wearing white coats and triangular badges, watched over

them. There was an endless flow of these Triangles in and out of the office of the Orderly Corps,

which led me to understand that they formed a kind of strategic, prowling army.

The Rhomboids, I figured, must be administrators, and the Pentagons were doctors,

psychiatrists, or therapists. In other words, they were the Inquisitors. That only left me to figure

out what rank the superior polygons held. I asked a tall, slim female inmate who was in line in

front of me. She pointed to the lighted signs.

“And what are the Technical Booths for?” I asked.

Her face was very attractive, but something about it reminded me of a bird of prey.

“They’re for cock-fighting.”

She collected a punch card at the window and as she turned to leave, added, “Or card

games.” She walked off, swinging her hips sensually.

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I was unable to ask her anything else, because a Rhomboid wearing heavy round glasses

that made him look like an owl was waiting to “inform” me. “Excuse me. I’ve been assigned to

this community. I need to know where I can eat and sleep,” I began.

“What’s your name?”

“Jaime Villa.”

My relief at having escaped from my solitary hell was as great as the Court Officer’s

happiness at having done his duty in handing me over to the PISM. The owl typed my name into

a computer and when he’d received an answer to his query, keyed in more information. A

printer produced a punch card, which he slid under the window to me.

Hoping to avoid a repeat of the shoving I’d received in the Third Community, I stepped

out of line to examine my punch card. I read it, not with the Court Officer’s esthetic pleasure,

but rather with the avidity of a starving man. Out of an unintelligible series of numbers and

letters – the PISM’s esoteric code – I was only able to glean that my cell was number 56. Finding

something to eat, it seemed, was up to me. Since I had no idea how to manage that, nor did I

know where to find my cell, I asked an inmate who was observing the back-and-forth of the

offices with solitary pride. He was tall and well built, with chiseled features. I showed him my

punch card and confessed my complete ignorance of the world in which I found myself, as well

as my extreme hunger. His cheeks moved slightly, but didn’t quite form a smile. His eyes were

filled with a measureless sadness, which struck me as incompatible with his arrogant disdain.

“When did you enter the PISM?” he inquired.

“Just now.”

At that, his bronze mask broke into a smile and his eyes wrinkled with ridicule.

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“I hate liars,” he growled.

“I’m sorry. It was two nights and a day ago.”

“We don’t measure time in days or nights here, only in bowls of bitter stew.”

“And what do I have to do to get some of that stew?” I begged.

“Overcome your disgust.”

“Right now, I’m so hungry I’d eat ground-up bones.”

His eyes drilled into me. I had no reason to resist his gaze; all I wanted was for him to

tell me how to find the two things I needed the most: food and my cell. However, in exchange

for shedding this little bit of light on my dilemma, he required something in return.

“What did they do to you up there?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He gave me a long look, as if he’d just reached a number of conclusions about me. Then

he looked toward the technical booths, and with a cold and bitter smile, he began to speak.

“This, sadly, is not a prison, but a laboratory. The inquisitors have no scruples – they’re

completely outrageous. For them, time has no importance, even though we men have only a

little time allotted to us. A minor offense can land you here for your whole life, if you resist their

methods. Haven’t you heard of the marranos?” he asked, assuming that I was ignorant about

something that was in fact quite common. “It was a derogatory term that Spaniards of the past

used to refer to Jews who had converted, because they believed that their conversion wasn’t

genuine, but was only to save themselves from the flames of the Holy Inquisition, all the while

maintaining their ancient rituals. So they called them pigs, or marranos, animals that the Jewish

Lost Characters 23

religion considers unclean. Here at the PISM, the inmates who are chosen by the Council of

Inquisitors to be released are also known as marranos.”

“And what are the inmates chosen by the other inmates called?”

My interruption surprised him. He didn’t seem used to being interrupted. After looking

me up and down, apparently confirming his poor initial impression of me, he carried on with his

speech. He didn’t answer my question.

“They think we’re abnormal, that after having had our share of hard knocks in life, we’ve

been lucky to end up here, so they can turn us into pure gold. They think they’re alchemists,

when in reality all they know how to do is to fill us with lead. They use the same tactics on

everyone: the bastards make us poor devils dream of a lost character, which we’ll find again if

only we submit. For now, the only option for an individual is to take a position of passive

defense. I’m here for defending my dignity. I was unfairly attacked and I jumped on my attacker

– it turned out worse for him than it did for me, and he died. It was violent. The Inquisitors

don’t have the same opinion of dignity that I do, and they believe that I need to change my

attitude. As you might imagine, I’m not going to give them an inch. A man died! When they’re

convinced that there isn’t anything else to do with me, they’ll let me go. After all, you can’t fight

a man’s dignity forever. And if they don’t let me go for one reason, I’ll find another one that will

get me out of here, probably worse than that got me in here. The inmates all call me Ferruccio,

which means ‘man of iron’ in Italian, but that’s not my real name.”

And without having answered any of my anxious questions, he calmly turned his back on

me, crossed his arms, and turned his attention to a group of inmates near him who were

chewing over some topic or other. A woman was in the middle, talking non-stop. She was

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incredibly ugly; it made her seem mad. She had a crew cut, like a man’s, and wildly staring eyes.

She whispered a question in Ferrucccio’s ear, pointing in my direction. After he answered, she

was my side like a shot.

“You must be the Doorman.”

“Why would I be a doorman?” I asked.

“Because I’m the Locust, and I know everything that goes on in this hole. You just spent

a whole day on the games floor, banging into doors. Around here, news travels at the speed of

light.”

Without waiting for my response, she went back to the group and took up her harangue

where she’d left off. I walked away and headed down a long gallery. Given the number of

inmates bustling along it, I guessed that it had to be the community’s main thoroughfare.

The gallery was lined on both sides with lighted signs reading “Common Room.” They

were clearly very popular. I could see benches along the walls and I also observed the same

cylindrical boxes and glass rectangles that I had seen on the floor where I’d been isolated. This

confirmed my suspicion that there was a closed circuit TV network throughout the penitentiary,

with Polygons continually at the controls, studying us. We were completely cut off from the

outside world.

This thought upset me, but then I remembered that there wasn’t anyone on the outside

who would be concerned enough to want to visit me in any case. I was surprised at my glum

reaction, but I chalked it up to the dismal atmosphere surrounding me. At this point, the

Inquisitors would have already ranked me among the stupidest inmates in my Community,

especially after my performance on the abandoned floor. Not to mention the nutcase who’d

Lost Characters 25

just given me the nickname “Doorman.” What a great first impression I’d made! I decided that I

needed to move cautiously from now on and not draw too much attention to myself. But if I

didn’t behave appropriately, how was I ever going to be chosen for release by the Inquisitors?

Release! Absorbed in these surprising thoughts, I didn’t realize at first that there was an inmate

standing in front of me, sniffing me boldly, as if he were a dog. He laughed for no reason. I

stepped away from him brusquely and kept walking.

The gallery opened onto a pentagonal platform– with signs reading Auditorium,

Gymnasium, Refectory, and Infirmary – that led to four huge rooms and to the corridor of cells.

Without hesitating, I headed for the refectory. There were two long counters on either side and

the center area was full of tables for four. One counter distributed food and the other, uniforms

and toiletries. Sharp objects such as scissors, nail files, and razor blades could only be obtained

from the SWUs – Secure Warder Units – who attended each inmate individually.

As far as I could tell, the refectory was only open at certain periods of time, and I felt

lucky to be able to serve myself two bowls of an unappetizing soup that appeared to include a

number of ingredients scientifically calculated to provide the inmates with everything they

needed for health and nutrition. If the kitchen staff never varied the ingredients, I could

understand why Ferruccio was so irritated. Along with my food, I was given a wooden spoon

and a plastic bottle of water. After eating, I went to my cell. It was identical to the one on the

deserted floor I’d been on earlier. I threw myself on the mattress and in no time was dead to

the world. I woke peacefully a few hours later, scrubbed myself clean in the shower, and went

out to see what was happening in the rest of the Community.

Lost Characters 26

I learned that the platform where the services were housed was called the Pentagon and

the platform with the various administrative offices that I’d seen earlier was the Hexagon. The

gallery was still humming with inmates. Some were walking in one direction or another, and the

others were seated on benches, watching the parade. One male inmate with the sharp look of a

bloodthirsty wolf paused in the middle of the passageway to take a good look around. If I’d

seen him on a street, I’d have sworn that he was looking for someone to kill. Since he was in the

main gallery of a penitentiary, the criminal merely listened to what was being discussed in one

of the common rooms before walking away, visibly worried.

The wolfish inmate was followed by a skinny, red-faced man whose body was so worn out

that it seemed likely he’d collapse at any moment. However, his face was suffused with the

most brilliant, beatific smile I’d ever seen, even on the faces of the most fortunate souls of the

“other world,” as the PISM’s inmates called everything outside the institution’s walls. It was

hard to tell if he was headed to his grave or returning from it, but he vibrated with a mysterious

happiness. “He’s a few cards short of a deck,” I thought.

Watching the pure soul follow the dark one as closely as his own shadow led me to

contemplate the contrasts and dirty tricks that defined this prison world. I wondered about the

experiences that had shaped Ferruccio’s theory regarding the lost characters who walked along

behind the inmates and who were thus saved by the Inquisitors’ methods. A sad young woman

looked at me as we crossed paths; she seemed as surprised when I looked back at her as I was

at her astonishment to see me looking at her. Our gazes tangled themselves around this

confusion and for a number of seconds we were tied to each other until she finally broke the

subtle bond with a graceful movement of her head.

Lost Characters 27

When I turned to look back at her, I tripped over a drunk who was stumbling and about to

fall. How had he managed to find alcohol in this hermetically sealed world? His cheeks were

pockmarked and his smile reveled gold teeth that sparkled in the bright light. Without warning,

he sat calmly down on a bench. Perhaps he’d only been acting drunk.

An older inmate, whose torso was so rigid that it seemed he was wearing some sort of

brace, bowed ingratiatingly to me. I imitated him until I was equally rigid. Then, with a rapid

movement of his armor-plated body, he righted himself while looking forward and I realized

that he hadn’t even seen me. He’d only stumbled. Behind him, a potbellied man with small eyes

walked beside a female inmate who was moving her breasts with incredible jauntiness. He

asked her, “Wouldn’t you love a nice single-malt Scotch right now?”

The man with the scarred cheeks and the brilliant smile pointed at them and said, “Those

two are always acting as if they were just passing through the place.”

The potbellied man seemed delighted at the insult. He smiled even more suavely and

added, “And some fresh oysters, with just a drop of lemon juice?”

“They don’t talk to anyone else because they think they’re better than all of us,” insisted

the pockmarked man.

The potbellied man turned and stared him down. “Why don’t you stick your tongue in

your ear?”

The man with the scarred face put his hand to his face, sadly. I wasn’t sure if it was

because he wanted to hide the craters that his life had left there, or because he was sorry

about what had just happened.

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Fed up with all the to-ing and fro-ing, I joined the ranks of the observers and found space

on a bench. No sooner had I sat down than a limping inmate stopped inexplicably in front of me

and offered me his hand.

“Would you mind terribly if I communicated with you?” he asked gallantly.

“I’d be delighted,” I replied with the same courtesy.

“Many thanks. My name is Del Clavel.”

“I’m Jaime Villa.”

“Very well, Mr. Villa. You’ll have noticed that good manners do not exist in this world. It’s

a society of the maladjusted, which is a judicial euphemism for a community of criminals.

Meeting someone like you, who is so sensitive to closed doors, is stimulating. My imprisonment

is due to an erroneous interpretation of my responsibilities. I lost a document due to the

carelessness of my wife, and I can’t prove to the Court that the cession of my rights has a legal

cover. The Inquisitors don’t understand anything about legalities, they only see what’s in front

of them. They’re like blinkered mules. It’s pitiful. For me, it’s a pleasure, it gives me real

satisfaction, to pass the time with a civilized person. I know that in the other world calling you a

person, a civilized person, is as common as saying ‘Good morning,’ but here we’re surrounded

by dark and criminal minds, so it’s a tribute that I’m sure you will appreciate. I haven’t heard

anything from my wife in many moons and I’m really quite concerned. She could surely find

that document at any time and take it to the Court, but she’s not very careful about papers. She

doesn’t think they’re important – she can’t even tell the difference between a pamphlet and a

legal document, and she’s so obsessed with tidiness that she’s always throwing them away.

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If there was some way to contact family members from here, I’d be able to call her on my

cell phone and guide her to that document, because it does exist and it has to turn up

eventually, if of course it hasn’t found its way to the trash can, but it’s not humanly or officially

possible to make a call from this prison – there’s no signal. I’ve tried to explain my powerful

need to locate the document to the Inquisitors, but they haven’t paid the slightest attention to

my arguments. They simply repeat, quite stubbornly I might add, that I ought to consider my

situation as if all of my papers were in order, and give myself over to the process of

readaptation. But I’m sure you’ll understand how contradictory and excessive this insistence is.

They want me to work on a hypothetical situation, and I’m a man, Mr. Villa, who believes above

all else in reality. The fact is, here at the PISM, there is no such thing as an objective view of

each person’s circumstances. The Inquisitors treat every case in the same way, whether the

inmate is a heartless killer or a man who has simply been the victim of his wife’s ignorance.

There’s no fairness here – I’m just going to say it. Fairness is looking at each person as they are.

And let’s just forget that whole, ‘Mr. Del Clavel, you haven’t organized the sketches for your

Inquisition’ business. That’s why you, a person who has been able to maintain his patience

when faced with so many closed doors, even at your young age, how can I say it, are an

example worthy of imitation. We are in a desperate situation, Mr. Villa, because the fact is that

here real principles are not principles, but rather fantasies, and that is no way to live. Look, I’ve

always tried to see things as they are – I’m not a demagogue who’s dedicated to pleasing the

masses, like so many others here. You’ll meet them soon enough. I understand the thorny

difficulties that I have to deal with, and even so I’m determined to confront the Inquisitors. I

encourage you to do the same. Those of us who are civilized people have to present a unified

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front against the barbarism of the rest of the inmates, on the one hand, and against the

scientific violence of the Inquisitors on the other. One can’t be demoralized by having found

that all the doors are locked, because if they call you Doorman it means that you’ve opened all

of them. Here is my hand, Mr. Villa. I’d like to shake yours with the same pleasure as before this

communication. Can you see that I’m an open door?”

And having finished this long-winded monologue, Del Clavel stood up and walked away.

His right leg was shaking and he wore the arrogant and hardened expression of a man who is

ready to fight for his cause until his strength gives out.

Dumbfounded by Del Clavel’s outburst, I headed toward the Pentagon. I found several

circles of inmates there, but while the groups in the Hexagon appeared to be dedicated to

discussing personal matters, these gave the impression of being minor political rallies. In the

center of each circle was an orator who the rest of the inmates listened to with rapt attention.

The biggest group surrounded a speaker who moved his hands so much that from a distance he

seemed to be a deaf-mute who had no other way of communicating. As I got closer, I heard one

of his listeners criticize him. “When you speak in public, you get in so deep that you end up over

your head.”

“And you’re a Centrifuge faker!” came the speaker’s reply.

I asked an inmate standing near me what that meant. He stared back at me. When I saw

that he wasn’t going to stop staring, I explained that I had just joined the Community. Suddenly,

he became a new man.

“So, you’re Doorman!” he exclaimed excitedly.

Lost Characters 31

I shrugged, indifferent, and his expression shifted back to a sort of primitive

bewilderment. He was looking at me open-mouthed now.

“Do you look at the Inquisitors that way, too?” I asked him.

His face contorted with pain, and like the speaker, he seemed suddenly out of his depth in

the conversation. He waved his arms and waggled his head. It was clear that he was anxious to

get away from me. Finally, with a grand gesture, he rejected the whole Pentagon, shouting,

“The truth does not exist!”

I shrugged again, and he spat at me. Probably the rules, the orderlies, and the closed

circuit TV wouldn’t allow him to do anything more serious. For the first time in my life, I didn’t

care about the insult. Maybe it was due to the fact that I, like the man who’d just spit on me,

rejected the whole Pentagon. Or perhaps the injustice of my confinement had pushed me so far

from everything that I believed that I was in over my head as well. The only thing that worked

was my survival instinct, which dimmed my reaction to the inmate who was about to explode

and led me to hide myself in a different circle, this one presided over by a quiet older man

holding up a pocket watch by its chain. Its crystal was broken, and once in a while he moved its

hands, showing it to his audience as if it were a miraculous relic. Despite his advanced age, his

hair was thick and dark; his gaze was dreamy, and his voice was peaceful.

“You can see what time is. Nothing. I can stop it with this watch at any hour, and leave it

there, at the mercy of my will. Well, we are all stopped watches. Outside, in the other world,

we never stop moving, tick-tock, tick-tock, but here time has died, and we’ve ceased ticking.

We’re like this unsprung watch – we can be set to any time. Before, we kept time badly, but we

kept it. Now we’re stopped and the only thing we can do here is to move from one hour to

Lost Characters 32

another, like the hands of this watch. I used to be a salesman, which is a respectable profession.

Now I do what time does here: nothing. If one of you asked me, ‘Zachary, what are you

selling?’, I’d answer ‘I’m not selling anything.’ And if you asked me, ‘So why do you force

yourself to talk as much as in the good old days?’, I’d say, ‘For no reason.’ ‘Listen, Zachary,’

you’d insist, ‘I don’t understand you. Or maybe you’re just winding me up with your patter.’ I’d

tell you that I don’t understand myself either. When you’ve got a watch that keeps time, you

don’t stop to look at its works, but when it stops, you open the back and see a set of wheels,

cogs, and springs that only an expert watchmaker could explain. I’m a broken watch, and since

I’m not a watchmaker, I can’t fix myself. That’s all I know. The Inquisitors have given me back

my watch, but as you can see, it doesn’t work. They don’t know how to fix it, either, and the

only thing they can tell me is to say what I’m feeling. Well, fine. I’ve said it.”

When he stopped speaking, the group faded slowly away. One of the inmates commented

as he went, “He’s been deceived by words.”

Zachary remained fixed to the spot where he stood, alone. It seemed that the blazing

energy he’d shown earlier had singed his face, leaving behind the sadness of a sleepwalker. A

little while later, he seemed to come to. He walked away with his head down.

When the refectory opened again, I hurried in for another bowl of soup. No sooner had I

started guzzling it down than a young woman sat down at my table. Her face had a classic

profile that evoked an ancient Greek sculpture. I was fascinated by her beauty, but I quickly saw

that her interest in me was not due to a mutual feeling of attraction.

“Are you the new inmate?”

“Yes.”

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“And how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Can’t you see what a good appetite I have?”

“That’s normal. You must have gotten pretty hungry upstairs.”

I looked at her grimly – she obviously knew about me already – and kept eating.

“You’re starting to climb the spiral, and when you get to the decisive point, nothing will

bother you at all.”

“I understand. After your nerves become liquid, they pass into a gaseous state.”

“Our life here is disconnected from the other world. Our only option is to think about

different things.”

“What things?”

“Well, reality, for example. People tend to see it as it serves them, and as a result they

don’t see a lot of truth. Look, I never used to pay any attention to my dreams, but now that I’ve

learned to interpret them I understand myself much better. The other day, after a good session

with my Inquisitor, as I was leaving I noticed that he’d enjoyed my flirting with him. And that

night I dreamt that I was with him in the technical booth. Before I could leave, an inmate, who

I’d always thought of as a clown, slipped in. When I shook hands with the Inquisitor to say

goodbye, I felt ashamed, and the inmate started jumping around and laughing at me. That’s

when I woke up. It seems that the meaning of the dream is both a desire and a fear of letting

myself feel my emotions freely. What do you think?”

“It’s curious. Really curious. And in the other world, as you say here, how was your love

life?”

“Normal.”

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“So what’s this about not being able to feel your emotions freely?”

“That’s just it. I’ve discovered that I feel them, but I hold certain things back.”

“Like most people.”

“But most people don’t know it, and I do.”

“That’s magnificent.”

“What’s magnificent?”

“The way that you know yourself.”

“Oh, but there’s more. Knowing myself better means that I know others better, too,

because human lives are interrelated.” She opened her hands and lightly laced her fingers

together. “Do you realize that the ideas here are different than in the other world?”

I was still fascinated by that beautiful face, but she was waiting for my response to her

comment, nothing more. I couldn’t help letting show my annoyance at her failure to find me

attractive. “Your problem is that in the past, you never saw anything besides what the mirror

reflected, and now that you don’t have it…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She interpreted my words as a response to her lack of interest in me, and she couldn’t

help throwing a dart of her own.

“I can’t understand how a man who is so sure of himself could spend more than 24 hours

locked on the games floor without figuring out how to use the elevator to get out.”

“And I can’t understand how you, as smart as you are, are still locked up here, listening to

the orderlies’ gossip.”

Lost Characters 35

She stood up, furious.

“Listen, handsome, your adventure upstairs is common knowledge.”

She motioned to the mannish female inmate with the mad expression, Locust, who

shuttled over. “Who’s this?” she asked.

“That’s Doorman,” Locust answered, shrinking away and looking up at me openmouthed.

“Get out of here! You look like a clown!” I shouted, banging my fist on the table.

She bowed reverentially to me.

“Actually, everyone thinks I look like a bug, and that’s why they call me Locust,” she said,

pulling herself up rigidly and opening her eyes wide. She did remind me of an insect.

“They’re right.”

“And this pretty girl,” she said, pointing to my table mate, “is the Dragonfly. Goodbye,

Doorman.” She stalked off.

“See what I mean?” said Dragonfly with acid coquettishness.

“There was no reason for you to call her over to prove your point.”

Dragonfly became serious. The silence was stressful. I quickly finished my bowl of soup

and decided not to have a second, so that I’d be hungry at the next meal and not have to

overcome the disgust that Ferruccio had warned me about. Dragonfly looked at me, intrigued. I

returned her gaze. “What’s behind that mask?” I wondered. As I stood, I expected that she’d try

to get me to stay, but she looked away and I returned to my cell.

Trying to salvage my pride, I asked myself, “Could she be a lesbian, like Locust? They seem

very close… but I don’t think so. That was a lousy attempt at a pickup!” I apologized to myself,

Lost Characters 36

“It’s not that I didn’t know what I was doing, it was her damned indifference. But then, I didn’t

know how to get past it, either.”

Under a cloud, I entered my cell to find a note pinned to a small corkboard behind the

door. I had an appointment in the technical booths the next morning. The booths were closed

in the afternoons, and the inmates spent their time sleeping, walking around, or making love. I

could be in bed with Dragonfly right now if things hadn’t gone so badly, but things here never

seemed to go well for me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, Locust’s face drifted into my

memory. Her protruding eyes bothered me. It occurred to me that her inability to keep still

belied a powerful need to escape from her own ugliness, not to rediscover this lost character

that the Inquisitors promised to those who believed them, as Ferruccio, the man of iron, had

explained. Dragonfly was a good nickname for that beautiful girl – her skin shimmered. Locust’s

skin was yellowish-grey. And the woman with the raptor’s profile had enormous hips and hard

breasts. I fell asleep with these thoughts wandering through my mind.

The inmates were waking up.

“Is this your first appointment?” the last inmate in line asked me. He was an older man,

with thinning hair and undistinguished features. He had a potbelly and as he walked, he swayed

from the ankles up. His face was flushed.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s obvious that you’re a beginner. There’s always a long wait, not that it matters; we

aren’t in a hurry around here. – Listen, Carmela, sit and wait for them to call you. Nobody’s

going take your turn. – That woman shakes in her boots every time she has to face the

Inquisitors. The other day she told me that the Inquisitor General said, ‘When you did what you

Lost Characters 37

did – and you know what I mean – you weren’t afraid of anyone, and now you don’t even have

the courage to play this innocent game.’ The Inquisitor General is the Dean of the PISM; he

rules the roost. You want to have him on your side.” He stood on tiptoe to see how far the line

had moved. “They must be ready to put the final touches on my case so they can release me.

What did you say your name was?”

“Jaime Villa. But you didn’t ask.”

“I’m Ildefonso Sopelana. As I was saying, the Inquisitor General is a despot. – Well,

Carmelita, are you feeling better? – This is much harder for women, especially if they never

worked outside the home. What did you say your job was?”

“I’m a journalist. But you didn’t ask me about that, either.”

“The press forms public opinion.”

“Ildefonso Sopelana, please come to the Council of Inquisitors’ office,” boomed the

loudspeaker.

Sopelana froze as if he’d just been caught doing something that wasn’t allowed. He

rushed over to the office. When he came back, he was perspiring.

“Requirements and more requirements,” he sighed, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.

“This is a purgatory of procedures, believe me. They’re always giving you the run-around, and

it’s always something picayune they want. Well, the line’s much shorter. Let’s see which

Inquisitor we end up talking to. Usually it’s the same ones, but once in a while there’s a new

face.” He seemed suddenly distracted, as if he’d just seen them in his imagination. “They’re

very deliberate about everything, which is their job, what the hell, but in the mean time,

they’ve got all of us on tenterhooks. What did you say your name was?”

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“Jaime Villa.”

“I’m Ildefonso Sopelana. It’s our turn. The problems we have to discuss are always the

same, but the way of looking at them changes. Then there’s the second part, the jury, the

Sublime Doorway, or simply the Doorway. It’s the organization that releases the candidates

presented by the Council of Inquisitors, or by the inmates themselves, via popular vote. The

Doorway is the worst requirement of all. Have you had to face it yet?”

“I just got here.”

“I lost track of what you were saying. Well, it doesn’t matter. The jury is made up of

specialists from the other world, whose only mission is to free us or remand us to custody.”

“I see. A ‘removable’ organization.”

“More like ‘on-and-off’. They can open the door or close it.”

“Like a switchman.”

“What does a switchman have to do with the jury? Your fear of the booth is making you

rave. It’s our turn now.”

Sopelana slid his punch card under the glass toward the bespectacled receptionist and

leaned toward me to whisper, “I think her glasses are awful.”

“She looks like an owl.”

My companion was again briefly distracted, but then he forced a smile and said, “You’re

mixed up again. The ones who look like owls are in the jury, and she’s the switchwoman.”

“By the way, if the candidates for release who are chosen by the Inquisitors are marranos,

what do you call the candidates chosen by the inmates?”

“They’re ‘spoon-fed.’ Why are you interested in something stupid like that?”

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“I’m new.”

“I could tell right away!”

When the owl-switchwoman returned his punch card to Sopelana, I saw that his hand was

trembling slightly.

“What booth is it?” he asked me, embarrassed. “I can never make out these scribbles.”

“Next,” said the owl-switchwoman.

I had to leave him so I could hand in my punch card. Sopelana headed for the booths,

swinging his potbelly.

“Excuse me,” said the Rhomboid behind the glass. “Here’s your card.”

I hurried to take my punch card back from her and saw that I was assigned to Booth #33.

An orderly took my card from me as I entered a long hallway. The booths were situated on the

left and right, the odd numbers on one side and the even numbers on the other. They were all

identical, made of reinforced metal with a single translucent pane of glass for a window. The

floor was covered with the same carpeting as the deserted floor, and the silence was also the

same – there was a complete lack of life here. It seemed that Ferruccio was correct that there

were areas in the Institute that were devoid of reality. They made me feel leaden. At the same

time, as I walked, I had an unreal sensation of zero gravity. It was fear.

I imagined 60 year-old Ildefonso Sopelano, trembling and helpless as he wandered the

corridor hoping to find his booth by chance. It was worse for him, I thought. And he surely

thought the same about Carmela, and she would have the same opinion of the inmate before

or after her. So often our pity is a defense mechanism.

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When I came to Booth #33, I opened the door, and Locust’s nickname for me rushed into

my mind, irritating me. That bitch! I entered a cubicle with a table and two wooden chairs in

the center. There was a sliding panel at the back of the booth that served as a door. Standing in

that geometric space, I felt infinitely despondent. The sensation of having lost my personality

that I’d felt in the hallway terrified me again, but this time, without a point of reference to fix

on, I felt myself identifying with the terrible bright light. I was aware of the fragility of shapes

and colors in this world and of the sudden blackouts that annihilated them. My conscience was

hollowed out; I couldn’t locate it anywhere. I yearned to have strong roots, to fight against the

void.

The door at the back of the cubicle slid open. A tall, ungainly man wearing a white coat as

lightly as if it were a workman’s coverall stepped through. His gold hexagonal badge blinded me

as if he had shined a flashlight in my eyes.

“I’m the Inquisitor General. Sit down, Villa.”

He held my gaze like he was aiming a gun at me. I obeyed.

“So you’re a journalist!” He rubbed his hands together with pleasure and stuck out the

tip of his tongue. “You don’t know how happy I am to have you here.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning his elbows on the table. “We’ve needed

someone of your profession here in the Institute to see up close just how well it works.” He

eyes sparkled as he observed me; he was clearly dedicated now to his favorite pastime.

I didn’t want to look away, fearing that if I did it would make my insecurity obvious, but I

couldn’t help myself. He was trying to exasperate me, and I thought of poor Sopelana.

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“This isn’t a place where criminals come to be punished. That would be as stupid and

brutal as mistreating an animal.” He leaned closer to me. “They come only to understand and to

be understood.”

I bowed my head slightly, moving my gaze as far as I could from his.

“What do you think, Villa?”

“I think it’s very good.” I was surprised that my words sounded perfectly normal.

“The length of the sentence, as you know, depends entirely on the inmate’s treatment

requirements. When you have to take a nasty-tasting medication, you don’t savor it, do you,

Villa? You drink it straight down.” He leaned back, smiling. “That’s exactly what you have to do

here. Or would you rather grow old within these walls?” he asked, all at once deadly serious.

“I understand,” I answered with dismay.

“As you’re so young, being sentenced to the Institute is really very fortunate for you,

despite everything else, because you’ll have the opportunity to make yourself over. That will

lead to you producing higher-quality work, without a doubt. I’ve read some of your articles, and

I’m sure of it.” He suddenly gawped, his eyes wandering.

“I believe you,” I said in an attempt to break the spell.

The Inquisitor General, reacting to my words, returned to normal.

“A twenty-year prison term, for example, can be reduced to just a few months thanks to

the PISM. Or a very short term can stretch out for years. Everything depends on the inmate’s

flexibility or stubbornness. If his criminality isn’t pathological and he isn’t corrupt, there’s

nothing to fear. He’ll find his freedom just around the corner. All he has to do is follow the

regulations.”

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He cupped his chin in his hand as if he were about to listen to a joke and asked, “So tell

me, Villa, what would you do with an individual who decides to take photographs of a drowning

man rather than throw him a life-ring?”

“That isn’t my case at all.”

The Inquisitor General dropped his gaze as if he were deeply ashamed. Then, gently

scratching his beard, he nodded.

“That’s true. The circumstances surrounding your crime were different. It was a

parabola.” He lifted his rooster’s head to the ceiling, and continued tersely, “But if you do

decide to explain it to us, be sure you make a good case for yourself.”

He stood angrily and left the room without saying goodbye. The Inquisitor General, with

his mobile little moustache and his bright, mocking eyes, his shifts in mimicry and his ironic

twists, his shifts of humor, sudden appearances and disappearances, all of it, gave me the

impression of a diabolical puppet. “Cockfights,” Raptor had said when I asked her what

happened in the technical booths. The Inquisitor General’s expression as he left the cubicle

demonstrated just how accurate her description was.

And now what? Was the show over, or was there worse to come? I decided to wait a

while, guessing that this first intervention was my “welcome.” Now they’d probably want to

start diagnosing my personality, taking it apart and rearranging it in curves, grades, and angles –

giving it a full representation in diagrams that would show my weak points and sketch out my

irregular profile. Later, they’d calculate how to bring about my readaptation and begin a series

of the kind of manipulations that Ferruccio hated. I certainly understood his fury better than I

did the Inquisitor General’s at my explanation of my case. My treatment would consist of

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correcting the errors of my evolution, pushing me to address my deficiencies, freeing me of my

defects, and restoring me completely, as if I were a damaged painting.

Immobilized in the confining cubicle, I imagined myself caught in a mousetrap, obliged to

change my ways if I wanted to be free. I thought of obstinate heretics burning in effigy, of the

original marranos, of those who were marginalized and benighted for their beliefs, of fugitives

carrying nothing but their consciences, of scapegoats, and a profound dejection came over me.

The panel slid open again and a young man, wearing a blindingly white coat with a blue

hexagonal badge, smiled at me in the friendly manner used by surgeons just before they cut

you open.

“I’m your Inquisitor, but I’m not here to condemn you for heresy,” he said, smiling, “like

the Holy Inquisition of the past. Rather, my goal is to help you to be released as soon as

possible.”

He carefully sat down and placed a folder on the table. He was close-shaven, and his

expression was serene. His words soothed me, and for the first time since I’d stepped into the

booth, I relaxed.

“Thank you.”

He pulled four color prints out of the folder and placed them in the center of the table. He

arranged them in a square and put the folder away.

“I’d like you to look carefully at these four paintings.”

I leaned over them as fearfully as if I were looking down into a well. Even though the

figures in each painting were clearly human, they were vaguely and imprecisely drawn, which

made it difficult to know what they represented. The image in the upper left showed two men

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in a room, with a table between them. One was seated and the other was standing with his arm

raised; a door was partly open and a mysterious figure was looking through into the room. This

scene was open to many interpretations, and I thought that everyone who looked at it could

explain it differently without being wrong. They would all eventually lose themselves in

innumerable connotations, although they would never discover its true meaning.

Were these the methods that Ferruccio condemned? Why? What reactions could these

innocent drawings unleash in the psyche? The drawing on the upper right of the square was the

most confusing. The only things that were clearly drawn were a bed and a wardrobe. The rest

was dark and difficult to make out. I decided to come back to it later.

In the drawing on the lower left I saw a man leaning against a streetlamp, alone on a rainy

night, and I jumped. It reminded me of the suicide on the viaduct. Because I’d failed to go to his

rescue, I’d been condemned to the PISM. I looked away. The Inquisitor was scrutinizing me. The

friendliness of his greeting had faded away. He was another man; his face had been

transformed into a grim mask. The last painting left me practically indifferent. My attention still

was completely focused on the previous image. Nevertheless, the final image was definitely the

easiest to understand: a tennis game, captured at the moment of the serve, was being played in

front of two couples. The strange thing was that the couples weren’t watching the game, nor

were the players taking it seriously, given that their places on the court were incorrect. When I

looked up again to review the images, the Inquisitor quickly started to remove them from the

table.

“I’ve hardly had time to glance at them.”

“That’s enough time.”

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After putting the paintings back in the folder, he handed me a pen and a stack of blank

pages. Each one bore a serial number and an official stamp.

“Now, please write a story that connects the four scenes that you’ve just viewed in the

paintings. When you finish, leave the pages on the table.” With a polite smile, he left the room.

Because the pages had serial numbers and seals, it was clear that I couldn’t write a draft

first, and any corrections I made would have to be legible. If they weren’t, the Inquisitors would

ask themselves, “What is he trying to hide from us?” First, I had to think the story through;

then, I’d skillfully write it down. It was essential to avoid any error that could compromise my

professional position. They had taken my warning that I was a journalist too seriously. It would

be naïve of me to try to sweet-talk them, but now that I had the opportunity to explain my so-

called criminal conduct from my point of view, I was going to take advantage of it.

Now they would see that I had behaved as any normal person would. There was an

enormous difference between simply being convicted of criminal responsibility and being a

pathological criminal or a corrupt person, as the Inquisitor General had said. I was going to use

this inquisition to make it clear that my conscience and behavior were completely within the

bounds of societal norms, which is what the Inquisitors needed to know in order to release me.

My attorney had already played these notes at my trial, but now the song was different. I was

going to demonstrate that if I were truly maladapted, there wouldn’t be enough penitentiaries

in the country to lock up the others like me who were roaming the streets, free. The ball was in

my court, and I badly needed to score.

“If you decide to explain it to us, be sure you make a good case for yourself,” had been

the Inquisitor General’s last words to me. Of course I would! Tying the four paintings together

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was not going to be that difficult. Two of them, the one with the streetlight and the one with

the table, were clearly representations of how the events of my case had unfolded. The one of

the bedroom and the one of the tennis match were not. They want me to tell a story with these

four images, so they all had to have the same underlying message. But if art uses unreal

elements to express the knowledge of reality, why not do the same with the other two

paintings? I remembered a conversation with my attorney. He’d said, “You’re not guilty of

anything, Jaime, get it into your head. But if your dog has taken a chunk out of someone, don’t

be surprised if the law pursues you and not your dog.”

“I don’t understand what this story about the dog has to do with anything,” I had replied.

“Oh, but it fits perfectly. Insurance companies need a fall guy, and they chose you

because you were the perfect target.”

“When the accidents happened, I was confused,” I thought. Exactly like the tennis player

in the fourth painting. That cheered me up. And the picture of the bedroom? It was the one

that made the least sense to me; it only suggested painful emotions – the distress of two lovers

discovered at the height of their passion, or the nightmares of a solitary man, his abandonment

and desolation. It was the most symbolic painting of all of them. It perturbed the viewer while

obscuring its meaning. On the other hand, the painting of the tennis match was a metaphor for

finding myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then something else occurred to me. It seemed that the penal authority was independent

from the judiciary. If the PISM’s guards didn’t trust court officers, it stood to reason that the

Inquisitors would have the same reservations about judges. Wouldn’t they want to review the

whole case, studying from up close the version that was most important to them – that is, the

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accused’s? If I could convince them to absolve me, would they send me to the Sublime

Doorway right away? Or would that cause a crisis in their relationship with the courts? No, the

PISM had to be very proud of its penal science, and after all it wasn’t the individual Inquisitor

who conceded or denied release, but rather an independent jury. There was no doubt that I

needed to lay all my cards on the table. The winds had changed. It was time to work! Even if I

made a mistake in the telling, surely my conscience was clear enough to extract the truth. After

a careful selection of the facts, I started to write.

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