e Scale of Maps

Belén Gopegui
Translated by Mark Schafer

City Lights Books San Francisco

First published in Spain with the title La escala de los mapas (Anagrama, 1993)
First published in the United States of America in 2010 by City Lights Books
Copyright © 1993 by Belén Gopegui
English translation © 2010 by Mark Schafer
All Rights Reserved
Cover and interior book design by Linda Ronan

This translation was supported in part by grants

from the Arlington Cultural Council, a local
agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural
Council, and by the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

Thanks to Professor Alan Smith for introducing me to Belén Gopegui’s novel and to
Trudy Balch, Dick Cluster and Cola Franzen for their generous feedback on an earlier
draft of this translation. Thanks to the Writers’ Room of Boston, the (nameless)
Boston-area literary translators group, the Arlington Arts Council, and the Spanish
Ministry of Culture for their support of this translation, from start to finish.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gopegui, Belén, 1963-
[Escala de los mapas. English]
The scale of maps / Belen Gopegui ; translated by Mark Schafer.
p. cm.
Translation from Spanish.
ISBN 978-0-87286-510-5
1. Gopegui, Belén, 1963—Translations into English. I. Schafer, Mark.
PQ6657.O65E8313 2010
863'.64—dc22
2010038348

Visit our website: www.citylights.com

City Lights Books are published at the City Lights Bookstore,
261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133
 1 If a small man were to kiss your hand then immediately
launch into a description of the hand crank used to open a win-
dow, what would you do? Given my line of work, I should not have
been considering such questions. And yet, I confess that for the
first few minutes Sergio Prim had me confused. Standing before
me, he spoke of the small metal part. His deep, trembling, porous
voice flowed more slowly than was typical in this type of patient.
He was considerably shorter than I, and his arms moved about
through a lower layer of the air, which perhaps is why I barely
noticed them. But memory now highlights the way his hands flut-
tered like a bashful magician’s as the only dissonant note in Mr.
Prim’s calm presence.
“Facing my desk is a window that overlooks an inner court-
yard,” he said confidentially. “It’s very old: a wooden frame, a black
window catch and a pane of frosted yellow glass. You open the
catch by turning a crank that is round at the end—let’s call it a
thick point. I’m asking you for help because I’m considering going
to live there.”
I led Mr. Prim into my office. The sky had grown dark as
if it were about to rain. Sergio discreetly cleared his throat and

7
settled into one of the large armchairs I had inherited from my
grandparents. I turned on a table lamp on the other side of the
room; its circle of light did not extend to where we sat. Before
retreating behind my large wooden desk, I offered him a cigarette,
which he declined.
“So, you’re considering going to live in your office?”
He gave me a melancholy smile.
“No, not at all. It’s not the office that’s important but the
crank. Though in any case the crank is just one option. There are
many points—hollows. If you have no objections let’s call them
hollows. You’re going to tell me that there’s nothing wrong with fre-
quenting a few hollows now and then. You’re right, quite right. But
as you will see”—Sergio Prim’s arm fell against the armchair with
surprising force—“my problem is that I need them. They are the
only way I have to stop myself. This very afternoon, had it not been
for a hollow, I certainly would not have made it here, I wouldn’t be
talking with you now, for I would have snapped the headphones of
that boy in the minibus right in two.”
I sat up and shuffled a few pieces of paper as I attempted to
disguise my excitement. Many years back, Julio Bernardo Silveria
had come to my office complaining of a similar ailment. His case
changed the direction of my doctoral dissertation as well as the
biography of my emotions.
“I happened to sit,” Prim continued, “directly behind a
young man wearing one of those tiny devices for listening to music
in private. It was ridiculous. The headset was letting out enough
noise—modern, monotonous, you know the kind—to annoy the
passengers sitting next to him but not enough for us to enjoy the
music naturally. Meanwhile, the young man, oblivious to the racket
he was making, was nodding his head as he flipped through the

8
pages of a glossy magazine. I was thinking of Brezo and that ir-
ritating little noise only annoyed me more. That was when a small,
wicked fantasy came to me. I imagined myself gently grasping each
end of that young man’s halo and spreading them farther and far-
ther apart until they formed a straight line and—crack!—a broken
set of headphones.”
“But you restrained yourself,” I noted with feigned detachment.
“Not exactly. I looked for a hollow. I found it in the fabric
of the coat the man sitting next to me was wearing. And I inhabited
that nook for the remainder of the trip. Look, nook. As you can
see, one letter can alter a man’s entire life.”
Prim slid the armchair closer and as he leaned forward his
figure gathered strength. He had the type of build that favors its
owner when he is sitting, preferably behind something that con-
ceals his disproportionate stature. Two short lines connected his
neck to his shoulders. His face, on the other hand, seemed to have
been molded by a cruel twist of fate to sit atop the uniform of an
elegant messenger for the czar: the eyes of a startled fox, a straight
nose, cheeks the shape of equilateral triangles, a head of thick dark
curls, and under the shadow of an ample gray moustache flecked
with white, his lips, shiny and red like a wax apple.
“Perhaps you would like to know why I chose the fabric of a
coat,” he added softly. “I can’t answer that yet. As far as I have de-
termined, objects conceal invisible hollows. But I don’t yet know if
our ability to detect them depends on a common characteristic—if
all objects are interconnected—or on the state of the person who
approaches them seeking protection. What I do know is that I’ve
started to write a treatise on the subject.”
“It’s an interesting idea,” I said by way of encouragement.
More than once at the beginning of my career, I had the misfortune

9
of seeing how a hasty judgment, a hint of indifference or scorn
could irremediably demolish men who held childlike illusions.
Ever since, I have taken special care not to discourage patients who
choose to take on tasks of their own free will. In this case, however,
my interest was disingenuous, like that of a photographer taking a
picture of the bullet that will kill him.
Sergio Prim settled into the armchair and gazed at a corner
of the ceiling. From where he sat, a distant tone in his voice, he
reprimanded me:
“It’s not that easy. Do you know that the first known map-
pa mundi, made by Anaximander of Miletus, dates to the sixth
century before Christ? There was a time, exaggerated and self-
absorbed, when our planet existed without maps. If a man wished
to represent a region of Africa on a flat surface, he had to go there
or else rely on the reports, memoirs, and accounts brought back
by explorers. I find myself in the same situation. To write a treatise
on the hollow—all points belong to a single hollow—I have to go
there. It still has not been mapped, and the few eyewitness reports
by those who claim to have frequented it are terribly imprecise.
Thus my ‘interesting idea,’ ” he said, repeating my words with a
look of reproach, “requires that I set out on an expedition, that at
the age of thirty-nine, I go off in pursuit of an unknown dwelling
place. Do you see what I’m saying? To venture into as yet undiscov-
ered regions with this feeble body of mine. And don’t think I use
that last adjective lightly. Over the course of my life, I have broken
my femur three times, my ulna twice, and my metatarsus once. My
muscles often tremble inexplicably, I experience dizzy spells and
feel that I’m on the verge of crumbling into the air.”
As if trying to demonstrate this, Sergio Prim began wrestling
with his dark overcoat. Underneath was a wool sweater of a color

10
somewhere between beige and pink, and the collar of a blue shirt
peeked out at his neck. In fact, Sergio Prim was slight of build in
the torso if not exactly skinny. Yet his words, combined with the
smartness of his attire—the straight crease in his pants, the refined,
creamy weave of his sweater—made me imagine that his body was
fragile, thin as a sheet of paper, practically fictitious.
“What is the reason for your visit, Mr. Prim?” I asked, se-
cretly afraid that the business about the hollow would be nothing
but a fleeting obsession.
“I want to know what’s going to happen with Brezo, the
Vanished Woman,” he said slowly. “For a week now her eyes have
been flying around like bats, knocking against the walls, spinning
round and round on the blades of imaginary fans in every room of
my apartment.”
Sergio Prim went over to the window. When he opened it,
the moiré curtains fluttered in the wind and the lamp shook. It had
started to rain. I paused for two or three minutes, listening to the
slow drizzle. But Prim interrupted me:
“By the way, did I mention that I’m being followed?”
His remark startled me. Perhaps he was one of those peo-
ple who spend their days reading books on psychiatry, write down
symptoms in a notebook, study them, and then come in to harass
us. Once my beloved had sent just such a person to spy on me.
I observed Sergio Prim with suspicion. His light sweater blended
with the cheek-colored fabric of the curtains. He stood with his
back to me, looking out at the street, his prominent head round and
nocturnal. Then he closed the window and I saw his face reflected
in the glass. I relaxed. Sergio Prim had a sober look on his face and
was not lying.
Sergio Prim was not lying because I am Sergio Prim.

11
 2 Never before have I revealed my strategies. I am embarrassed.
I wish I could expunge myself with an eraser while you, readers,
grasp the nature of my ruse.
Only to reappear in the next paragraph. I was always a pru-
dent man. I would offer thanks for that which did not deserve grati-
tude and beg forgiveness for actions that could not possibly have
caused offense. So I don’t mind doing it again: Please forgive me,
or at least accept my explanation. What would you have thought as
you read these pages had I started by saying, “My first visit to the
psychologist took place . . .”? You might not agree with my conclu-
sions, but you would be mistaken to dismiss them simply because
I, their architect, am unbalanced. No, no, not at all. I was engaged
in a project in which the psychologist played a role, and that is why
I went to see her. She would provide me with the scientific founda-
tion, the touchstone or black siliceous rock against which I would
rub the gold of my imagination. Over the last three days, however,
events have accelerated, and I have come to rest at this Earthly con-
vergence of crosshairs, a place free of error whose image weighs on
me like a debt of honor, like a final responsibility. It is eight in the
evening. Outside, the willows yield to the shadows with a shiver. In

12
the living room below someone puts on a record of habaneras; the
music filters through the hallways. I wrap a scarf around my neck,
open the window, exhale her name—“Brezo”—and let it float in
the air like an iridescent ring of smoke.
I stand here before you, I, the hopeless substitute for the
strategic genius who should have been carrying out this mission,
preparing to deploy my troops with the exquisite fervor of some-
one who knows that winning or losing is out of his hands. In a
hotel room, on an unfamiliar table, I will draw the maps and give
the final orders to an exiled band of guerrillas in rebellion that is
none other than myself. Oh, Brezo Provocateur. Why do you incite
my outlandish imagination, incite it and me, the two of us, to climb
over barricades when we are not agile, to suffer insults and fight
duels when we are not bold?
Watch how I found Brezo in a supposition. It was night-
time and it was raining. The red brake lights, white headlights, and
orange directionals created a ballet of shifting reflections on the
pavement. It was October, but my head filled with strings of lights
and trees lit up like Madrid at Christmas. Immediately I thought
“Maybe she’s back,” because every year, no matter where she was,
Brezo would return to spend Christmas Eve with her widower fa-
ther. I imagined her walking from her house on Calle Alcalá and
imagined her recognizing my silhouette under the eaves of the bus
shelter. “Let’s suppose,” I said to myself, “that I felt her cold, slen-
der fingers covering my eyes. What would I do?” At that moment
the number 9 opened its doors and Brezo appeared. She got off the
bus escorted by a cluster of passengers. I watched as she quickly
crossed the street, the walk signal blinking, and I debated with my-
self, frozen, astonished, as if trapped and suspended within a single,
gigantic, accented “o,” the accent as large as it was terrifying. Traffic

13
was moving again when I snapped out of this trance, but I took off
running, entrusting myself to that little red man, and reached the
sidewalk on the other side of the street safe and sound. I ran uphill,
such a large, grotesque figure—at my age!—the shoes of a duck
slapping the puddles, my left arm raised, umbrella at the ready. I
ran disheveled by my urgency until I could almost touch her, and
I would have covered her eyes with my hands had she not turned
around first.
“Sergio Prim!” you laughed, my devilish geographer with
walnut-colored eyes.
“Brezo Varela,” I stammered as you took shelter under my
umbrella and wrapped your arm around mine. “Brezo,” and I held
back from saying, “Perch beneath this portable porch.”
Four unimaginable months have passed. Do you see that bi-
cycle without brakes speeding down that sandy path? Do you see
the gentleman steering it in terror, hands over his ears, legs crossed,
his torso bouncing on the seat? If you get a little closer you will
recognize my face. And I confess to you that on that night, walking
arm in arm with Brezo, all I could do was to make sure the brakes
were not going to work.

14
 3A man takes a step and nothing happens. A man crosses
the threshold of the same doorway 14,637 days in a row. And the
14,638th time he discovers a stag with a full rack of antlers under
the lintel. For ten years now I’ve seen Brezo only during vacations,
listening—I, her listener, I, her mentor—to stories of her life, of-
fering her made-up episodes from my own. Why bore her with the
truth? As you may have guessed, the story of Brezo and me is none
other than that of the stag. Listen. A man walks alone until he no
longer has the faintest notion of the number that denotes his lone-
liness. Night falls and the same man is walking arm in arm with
the woman he loves. She lifts her head, looks at him, then takes his
hand in hers, laughs. And the man doesn’t know what to do. You’ll
tell him: Kiss her. Of course, kiss her, but sex is transient, ladies and
gentlemen, passion is chancy. Who am I to offer shelter to the body
of another? And yet, I kissed her.
Brezo came up to my apartment, looked out from the balco-
ny, and let me stroke her on the side like a bird. It was not yet nine
o’ clock. The twilight of neon signs filled my room. I got undressed
first, and she was meek and beautiful as she took off her white shirt.
To watch her shoulders, the agility with which she moved, acquired

15
in unnamed experiences. Slender and proportioned, she lay on the
bed naked, as if wishing to be my own representation—not Brezo,
not her life story, just a representation offered up to me, her arms
extending the lines of her body, my hand on her back, and my
astonishment. Why had she chosen me? Why, after all these years?
I am a small man, I have the shoulders of an old boxer, and pale
skin. To look at her was to perceive a total absence of silences, as if
it were at last possible to imagine a space without crouching mon-
sters, without painful memories, as if I had lost my fear of tripping
on the crack between two tiles, of plunging my hand between one
section of air and another.
I caressed her slowly. At first she was afraid of being over-
taken by ecstasy, so I protected her. I asked her before I made any
unusual movement and took care to rouse a gentle purring in her
body until I watched her wake fully to desire, lifting herself like an
apparition over my misplaced body, my dazzled eyes, and she ex-
isted in me. I filled her and she responded with a moan like a bubble
of light and an ecstatic smile. My god—what had caused taciturn
Brezo, somber Brezo, self-absorbed and serious Brezo to smile at
me like that? My hands dreamed over her small breasts, I kissed her
in disbelief, defenseless in the face of her defenselessness, which she
offered to me, yet growing larger like a happy man. All the while her
back was time itself, and years of my life rippled through her thighs,
years I’d never known, years when I wasn’t walking along the fence
that surrounded the high school field, quiet and deep in thought,
years when no one muzzled my desire, rather, every action I took
could always be taken back, for it was beautiful, good, and pleasant.
The whites of her eyes so close they were surprised to find me so
close. So close that her collarbone fit in my hand, so close that her
hair was losing control—enveloping me as I kissed her until she lay

16
fully extended, the plain of a woman. I continue to watch her. Her
red nipples are an alarm calling me; she has spilled her sensuality
onto my bed for her own amusement. But if I am a skeptic, if I
have established solitude as my safe-conduct, what happened to me
as I looked at her face, beautifully distant on account of my body?
I was her distance and she was inhabiting me when I heard her say,
laughter spilling from her mouth, I feel faint. What did you do to
me, madwoman? What are you doing to me?
When she left, day breaking, vain and dissolute, when the
white taxi disappeared, I instinctively searched for the smell of
Brezo on my clothes. Dumbfounded, I scanned the sidewalk, mut-
tering “I never would have thought. . . .” Finally I ducked into
an English pub. As I recovered my senses, I was once again filled
with anxiety. I asked for a glass of aged rum, though I rarely drink
and even less often do I find myself in frothy spots like this—red
leather seats studded with buttons, thick cardboard coasters. It was
not Brezo’s absence that troubled me but my fear. What would I do
with her now? How would I proceed from one day to the next? I
never cultivated the art of being with other people. I never learned
to reconcile my state of rest, my private convalescence in a lodging
room of the world lit by a single lamp, with the sharp breath, like a
gust from a storm, that the new guest lets out upon arrival. During
that time in my life when I was surrounded by other people—first
my family, then Lucía, my wife for four years—I found that people
who had just come into the house inevitably spoke in an overly
high-pitched voice and stood in the entranceway longer than neces-
sary, squandering words, repeating a message that I in my intoler-
ance meticulously screened out. Moreover, the bodies that had just
come in from outside usually brought with them clouds of cold or
muggy air, pollen or rain, depending on the season. I would gaze

17
at them from where I sat, submerged in my armchair, and though
I’ve never worn glasses I would feel like a retired professor, one of
those professors who connect with the universe through two round,
silvery lenses.
I noticed my eyes were burning: I was surrounded by smok-
ers. A young man in a waiter’s outfit began to play the piano. A
blonde woman with gloves on raked the lapel of a gentleman who
looked like me. Get out, I told myself. Get out of here. You can fall
asleep tomorrow and you have to finish writing those pages on the
southwest sector. Such humidity outside. Such smell of Brezo. Such
insomnia filling my apartment.

18