Story: The badge

Peruvian tales
“A good book is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think.” James McCosh.
Tales of Julio Ramón Ribeyro
The badge

[Story - Full text.]
Julio Ramón Ribeiro

Until now I remember that afternoon when I passed a small garbage can see a bright object. With a very explainable curiosity in my collector's temper, I ducked and after picking it up, I rubbed it against the sleeve of my bag. Therefore, I could see that it was a small silver badge, crossed by signs that at that time seemed incomprehensible.

 I threw it in my pocket and, without giving more importance to the matter,

I returned to my house. I cannot specify how much time was stored in that suit that used little. I only remember that on one occasion I sent him to wash and, with great surprise of mine, when the clerk returned it to me clean, he handed me a little box, telling me: "This must be yours, because I have found it in your pocket."
It was, of course, the badge and this unexpected rescue moved me to such an extent that I decided to use it.
Here the chain of strange events that happened to me really begins. The first was an incident that I had in an old bookstore. I was reviewing old bindings when the boss, who had been watching me for a long time from the darkest corner of his bookshop, approached me and, with a tone of complicity, between winks and conventional grimaces, he said: “Here we have books by Feiffer " I looked at him intrigued because I had not asked for that author, who, for the rest, although my knowledge of literature is not very broad, it was entirely unknown to me. Then he added: "Feiffer was in Pilsen." As I did not leave my stupor, the bookseller ended with a tone of revelation, of definitive confidence: “You must know that he was killed. Yes, he was killed by a slap at the Prague station. ” And with that said he retreated to the angle from which he had emerged and remained in the deepest silence.

 I continued to review some volumes mechanically but my thoughts were worried in the enigmatic words of the bookseller. After buying a mechanic book, I left, baffled, out of business.
For some time I was reasoning about the meaning of the incident, but since I could not solve it, I ended up forgetting about it. Soon a new event alarmed me.

 I was walking through a square in the suburbs when a man with a liver and angled face often approached me unexpectedly and before I could react, he left me a card in my hands, disappearing without saying a word. The card, in white cardboard, only had one address and one quote that read: SECOND SESSION: TUESDAY 4.

 As expected, on Tuesday 4 I went to the indicated numbering. Already in the surroundings, I found several strange subjects that were hanging around and that, by a coincidence that surprised me, had a badge equal to mine. I entered the circle and noticed that everyone shook my hand with great familiarity. Then we enter the house indicated and in a large room, we take a seat. A serious-looking man emerged behind a curtain and, from a stage, after greeting us, began to speak endlessly.

 I do not know precisely what the conference was about or if that was indeed a conference. Childhood memories were tackled with the most acute philosophical speculation, and the same expositive method was applied to the organization of the State to digressions about beet cultivation. I remember that he ended up painting red stripes on a blackboard, with a chalk he took from his pocket.
When he was done, everyone got up and began to retire, commenting enthusiastically on the success of the talk. I, by condescension, added my compliments to his own, but, at the moment I was about to cross the threshold, the speaker passed my voice with an interjection, and when he turned me he gave me a signal to approach me.
-You are new, righ t? He asked me, a little suspicious.
"Yes," I replied, after hesitating for a while, because I was surprised that I could have identified among so many people. I have little time.
- And who introduced it?
I remembered the bookstore, with great luck from me.
-I was in the Amargura street bookstore, when the…
- Who? Martin?
-Yes, Martín.
- Ah, he is our partner!
-I am an old client of yours.
- And what did they talk about?
-Well ... from Feiffer.
- What did he say?
-What had been in Pilsen? In truth, I did not know.
- I did not know, I did not know it.?
- No - I replied with the greatest tranquility.
- And he didn't know that he was killed with a slap at the Prague station?
-That told me that too.
- Ah, it was a scary thing for us!
-Indeed -I confirmed- It was an irreparable loss.
We had an ambiguous and occasional talk, full of unforeseen confidences and superficial allusions, such as

We had an ambiguous and occasional talk, full of unforeseen confidences and superficial allusions, such as that held by two strangers who accidentally travel in the same seat of a bus. I remember that while I struggled to describe my tonsil operation, he, with great gestures, proclaimed the beauty of Nordic landscapes. Finally, before retiring, he gave me an assignment that did not stop calling my attention.
"Bring me in the next week," he said, "a list of all the phones that start with 38."
I promised to comply with the order and, before the deadline granted, I concurred with the list.
-Admirable! -He exclaimed- You work with exemplary speed.
Since that day, I completed a series of similar orders, most strange. Therefore, for example, I had to get a dozen parrots that I never saw again. Later I was sent to a provincial city to pick up a sketch of the municipal building. I remember that I also took care of throwing banana peels at the door of some scrupulously marked residences, of writing an article about the celestial bodies, which I never saw published, of training a minor in parliamentary gestures, and even of fulfilling certain confidential missions, like carrying letters that I never read or spying on exotic women who generally disappeared without a trace.
In this way, little by little, I gained some consideration. After a year, in an exciting ceremony, I was elevated in rank. "You have risen one degree," the superior of our circle told me, hugging me effusively. I had, then, to pronounce a brief address, in which I referred in vague terms to our common task, however, which, I was acclaimed with a clatter.
In my house, however, the situation was confusing. They did not understand my unforeseen disappearances, my acts surrounded by mystery, and the times they interrogated me I evaded the answers because, in reality, I did not find a satisfactory one. Some relatives even recommended that I get checked by an alienist, because my behavior was not exactly that of a sensible man. Above all, I remember having intrigued them a day that surprised me by making a thick false mustache because I had received the order from my boss.
This domestic belligerence did not prevent me from continuing to dedicate myself, with an energy that I could not explain myself, to the workings of our society. Soon I was a rapporteur, treasurer, deputy of conferences, administrative advisor, and as I was plunging into the organization, my confusion increased, not knowing if I was in a religious sect or in a group of cloth manufacturers.
After three years, they sent me abroad. It was a most intriguing trip. I did not have a penny; however, the boats offered me their cabins, in the ports there was always someone who received me and lavished me attention, and in the hotels they gave me their comforts without demanding anything from me. So I linked up with other brothers, I learned foreign languages, I gave lectures, I opened subsidiaries to our group and I saw how it extended the silver badge all over the continent. When I returned, after a year of intense human experience, I was as baffled as when I entered Martín's bookstore.
Ten years have passed. On my own merits, I have been appointed president. I wear a purple toga gown with which I appear in the great ceremonies. Affiliates try to vuence me. I have an income of five thousand dollars, houses in the spas, servants with livery who respect me and fear me, and even a lovely woman who comes to me at night without me calling her. In addition, despite all this, now, as on the first day and as always, I live in the utmost ignorance, and if someone asked me what the meaning of our organization is, I would not know what to answer. At the most, I would just paint red stripes on a blackboard, hoping with confidence the results produced in the human mind every explanation that is inexorably based on the cabal.
FINISH.



With affection,
Ruben