Julio Cortazar - Headache (Translation by Michael Cisco)

8/10/2019 Julio Cortazar - Headache (Translation by Michael Cisco)

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HeadacheJULIO CORTÁZAR

The late Julio Cortázar was a sickly child and spent many hours in bed. Perhaps those memories inspired Cefalea, the feverish story of the care and feeding of fantastical creatures called the mancuspias, which debuted in his 1951 collection Bestiario. Tor.com is proud to share with you Headache, the first ever English translation of Cefalea.

The rights to translate Headache English were arranged by Ann VanderMeer. Translation by Michael Cisco.

We owe the most beautiful images in this story to Dr. Margaret L. Tyler. Her admirable poem, A Guide to the Most Common Remedies for Symptoms of Vertigo and Headaches appeared in the review HOMEOPATHY (published by the Argentinian Association of Homeopathic Medicine), vol. XIV, no. 32, April 1946, page 33 passim. Likewise, we thank Ireneo Fernando Cruz, who first imparted to us, during a tripto San Juan, his knowledge of the mancuspias.

We look after the mancuspias until pretty late in the afternoon. Now that the summer heat has come they have become changeable and full of caprices, the latecomers require special nourishment and we bring them malted oats in big china bowls

; the largest ones are shedding the fur on their backs, so we have to keep themseparated, tying a blanket around them and taking care they do not socialize atnight with the other mancuspias that sleep in cages and receive food every eight hours.

We arent feeling well. Its been coming on since the morning, maybe caused by the hot wind that blows every day at dawn, before the rising of a sun that pours down on the house all day like a rain of hot pitch. It is hard for us to attend to the sick animalsthis at around elevenand check up on the young ones taking their naps. Walking is getting to be more difficult, keeping up the routine; we suspectthat one solitary night of neglect could spell doom for the mancuspias, and irreparably ruin our lives. So we proceed without a thought, completing tasks one after the other alternating according to routine, pausing only for food (there are

bits of bread on the table and on top of the mantelpiece in the living room) or to stare at ourselves in the mirror that duplicates the bedroom. At night we fall abruptly into bed, and the inclination to brush our teeth before sleeping yields to our fatigue, so that we can only manage a wave of the hand toward the lamp or the medicine bottles. Outside is the sound of the adult mancuspias walkingand walking in circles.

Were not feeling well. One of us has to take Aconitum, a name derived from drugscontaining large amounts of aconite in solution, which are used if, for example, fear induces an attack of vertigo. Aconitum is a violent thunderstorm, that passes quickly. How else would you describe the counterattack of an anxiety that is triggered by any insignificant thing, by nothing. A woman is abruptly confronted with a dog and begins to feel wildly dizzy. Then aconitum, and after a little

while the fit becomes a sweet giddiness, with a tendency to move in reverse (this happened to us, but it was a case of Bryonia, which caused us to collapse just the same, with a feeling as if we were sinking into bed).

The other one of us, in marked contrast, is thoroughly Nux Vomica. After bringing the mancuspias their malted oats, maybe after doing too much bending down to fill the bowl, one experiences a rush as if the brains were suddenly spinning, not that everything around one spinsas is the case with vertigorather it is the vision itself that spins, such that the inner consciousness rotates like a gyroscope in its hoop, while the exterior is all tremendously immobile, it is only that w



Maybe what were saying would be monotonous and useless if things did not gradually alter as they repeat; the last few daysnow that we are entering into the critical weaning periodone of us must acknowledge, with bitter feelings, that a Silicaphase is coming on. It begins the moment one goes to sleep, a loss of stability, an inner leap, a vertigo that scales the spinal chord and into the head; just like the creepy crawling (it can be described in no other terms) of the little mancuspias up the posts of the corrals. Then, suddenly, above the black hole of sleep wed fallen deliciously into, we sense just what hard and caustic post the playful mancuspias are climbing on. And closing the eyes makes it worse. So much for sleeping, no one sleeps with open eyes; were dying of fatigue but a little nod-off is enough to make us feel vertigo crawling, swinging in the skull, as if the head were full of living things spinning around and around inside. Like mancuspias do.

And it is pretty ridiculous, since its well-known that the illness proceeds froma lack of silica, which is to say, sand. And we are surrounded by sand dunes here, we live in a little valley threatened by immense dunes of sand, and yet we have none when we go to sleep.

Notwithstanding the likelihood that encroachment will continue, we prefer to spend a bit of time severely doped up; by noon we have noticed the medications taking effect, and the afternoon of work that follows comes off seemingly without ahitch, except maybe for a few minor derangements of things, so that, after a lit

tle while, the objects seem to stand motionless before us; a sensation at the very edge of life in every way. We suspect things are becoming more Dulcamara, but it is not easy to be sure.

In the air the down of the adult mancuspias floats gently, after our naps we gowith scissors, rubber bags, and Chango out to the corral where they are gathered for shearing. The nights in February are cooling already, the mancuspias needed their coats to sleep in, because they sleep stretched out and so are more vulnerable than animals that curl up to sleep with their legs crossed. However, the fur on the back sheds, sloughing off bit by bit and floating in the air, eventually filling the corral with a floury haze of lint that tickles the nostrils and chases us back into the house. So we gather them together and trim their backs only halfway, being careful not to leave them too much exposed to the cold. When t

he clippings are too short to billow in the air, they fall in a yellowish residue of dust that Leonor wets down with the hose and rolls up into the daily wad of paste, which is then tossed down the well.

One of us has his hands full matching up the males to the young mancuspias, weighing these chicks while Chango reads aloud the results of the previous days weight checks, verifying the development of each mancuspia and separating out the more slow-developing ones for extra feed. We keep this up until nightfall; until finally Leonor distributes the oats of the second meal in a flash, and then we lock up the mother mancuspias while the little ones squeal and obstinately try to follow alongside them. Its Changos job to take them off separately, while we inspect the veranda. At eight we close the doors and windows; at eight we are inside,alone.

This was once a sweet moment, when we would recount incidents and hopes. But now that we are not feeling well it seems as if this hour only extends the tedium.Vainly do we beguile ourselves with the arrangement of our little pharmacythe alphabetical order is constantly being upset by oversight; on and on we linger silently at the table, reading the manual of Alvarez de Toledo (Educate Yourself) or of the Humphreys (Homeopathic Mentor). One of us has been experiencing an intermittent Pulsatilla phase, that is to say, exhibiting symptoms of volubility, moroseness, exactingness, and irritability. This comes on at dusk, and coincides with the Petroleum stage that affects the other, a state in which everythingthings, voic



es, memoriesroll over one, as the sufferer becomes tumescent and stiff. There isno conflict between them, its hardly comparable to the other, and tolerable enough. Afterwards, sometimes, sleep will come.

We would not wish to insert an artificially sequential scheme into these notes,one which will increase in articulation until it bursts with all the pathos of a great orchestra, after which the voices subside and droop into the tranquilityof satiety. Sometimes we write of things that have already happened to us (likethe great Glonoinum headache the day that the second litter of mancuspias was born), and sometimes we write of what happens now or just this morning. We believe it necessary to document these phases for Dr. Harbin to add to his new medicalhistory when we go back to Buenos Aires. We are not clever, we know that we lose the thread pretty fast, but Dr. Harbin prefers to understand the details surrounding the case. This rubbing against the bathroom window that we hear at night might be significant. It might be a symptom of Cannibis indica; already it is known that a Cannibis indica has exalted sensations, with exaggerations of time and distance. It could be a mancuspia who has gotten loose and come to the light.

We started out optimists, and we have not lost hope of gaining a good sum with the sale of the young ones. We rise early, since time is of the essence during the final phase, and, at least to begin with, we are almost unaffected by the flight of Chango and Leonor. Without advance notice, without fulfilling any of their statutory obligations, last night those sons of bitches made off with our horse and the sulky, one of our rugs, the carbide lantern, and the latest issue of Mu

ndo Argentino. The silence in the corrals made us suspect their absence, we have to rush to release the young and get them nursing, preparing the baths, the malted oats. We keep telling ourselves not to brood over this occurrence, we work without admitting that now we are alone, without a horse to cover the six leagues to Puan, with provisions for a week, now being used by useless bums making therounds of towns, now that the stupid rumor has spread that we breed mancuspias and everybody should keep clear of us for fear of infection. Only with healthy exertion can we tolerate the conspiracy of forces that oppresses us at midday, atthe height of the lunch hour (one of us throws together a plate of tongue and acan of peas, fried ham and eggs), that rejects the idea of going without our siesta, locks us up within the shade of the bedroom more implacably than the double bolted doors. Its only now that we clearly remember last nights bad sleep, that weird vertigo, transparent, if one may be permitted such an expression. Waking, s

tarting up, looking straight ahead at some objectthe wardrobe, for examplewhich is seen spinning at variable velocity and deviating inconsistently on one edge (the right side); while at the same time, through the vortex, the same wardrobe can be seen standing firmly in place and not moving. One doesnt have to think too hard to recognize it as a Cyclamen stage, of the kind that responds to treatment in only a few minutes and braces us to get up and back to work again. Far worse to be jolted out of the depths of a siesta (when things are so very much themselves, when the sun brusquely draws its edges around things) by agitation and jabber from the corral of the adult mancuspias, when one of them abruptly and with disquiet renounces their fattening repose. We dont want to go out, the high sun would mean a headache, how can we chance the possibility of headaches now, when everything depends on our work. But what else can we do, the disquiet of the mancuspias is growing, now it is possible to hear from the house the unprecedented rac

ket spreading over the corrals, so then we throw on our protective pith helmets, and divide up after a hasty consultation. One of us hustles out to the mothersin their crates while the other verifies that all the gates are locked, and thewater level in the Australian tank is all right, and checks for the possible invasion of a fox or a mountain lion. We had only just arrived at the entrance to the corral when we were blinded by the sun. Like albinos we waver between the white flashes, we would like to continue the work but it is late, the Belladona stage harasses us and flings us down exhausted in the somber recesses of the barn.Congested, face red and hot; pupils dilated. Violent pulsation in the head and carotid. Violent twinges and lancings. Headache like shaking. Pressing down with



a whiff of it, and the agitation in the crates is violent. We do not dare to release them, it is better to drop a spoonful of porridge into each crate, in thisway it seems that more of them are satisfied, that the distribution is more even. Nor do we dare to remove the dead mancuspias, nor is there an explanation forten empty crates, or for how some of the young ones came to be mixed in with the males in the corral. It can barely be seen, now that night is falling all at once and Chango has robbed us of the carbide lamp.

It seems as if, in the road, there against the mountainous willows, there were people. If we are going to send someone to town, this is the moment; there is still time. Sometimes we wonder if they arent spying on us, the people are so ignorant and they dont have much between their eyes. We prefer not to think and we close the door happily, retreating to the house where everything is more our own. We would like to consult the manuals so as to avoid a new Apis, or some other, still worse beast; we leave supper and read aloud, almost without hearing. Some phrases climb over the others, and outside it is the same, some mancuspias howl louder than the rest, keeping it up and repeating a piercing ululation. Crotalus cascavella causes peculiar hallucinations . . . One of us repeats the line, were glad we know Latin so well, crotalo cascabel, rattlesnake rattle, but it is redundant because cascabel, rattle, is equivalent to crotalo, rattlesnake. Maybe the manual does not want to alarm the ailing layman by naming the animal directly. Nevertheless it does present this name, this terrible serpent . . . whose venom actswith horrible intensity. We have to yell to make ourselves heard over the clamorof the mancuspias, once again we can feel them surrounding the house, on the roo

f, scratching at the windows, against the lintels. In a way it isnt so strange, for lately weve seen so many open crates, but the house is closed and the light in the dining room enwraps us in its chill protection while we shout over the scratching. Everything is clear in the manual, direct unprejudiced language for invalids, the description of the symptoms: headache and great excitement, caused bythe onset of sleep. (Good thing we wont be doing any sleeping.) The cranium squeezes the brain like a steel helmetwell said. Something living roams in circles within the head. (In that case, the house is our head, we feel the roaming, each window is an ear shut against the howls of the mancuspias right outside.) Head and chest burdened by iron armor. A red hot iron driven into the vertex. We are not sure about that word vertex, a moment ago the lights flickered, dwindling little by little, we must have forgotten to start the mill this afternoon. When reading is no longer possible, we light a candle right next to the manual so we can f

amiliarize ourselves completely with the symptoms, it is better to know in case, later onStabbing pains sharp in the right temple, it is a terrible serpent whose venom acts with horrible intensity (we just read this, it is difficult to makeout by candlelight), something living roams in circles within the head, we readthat too, its just like that, something living that roams in circles. We are notworried, it is worse outside, if there is an outside. We look at each other across the manual, and if one of us gestures at the howling that keeps getting louder and louder, we just go on reading as if we were sure all of this was in there, something living that roams in circles howling at the windows, at the ears, the mancuspias, dying of hunger, howling.

Cefalea, Bestiario © Heirs of JULIO CORTÁZAR, 1956

Julio Cortazar - Headache (Translation by Michael Cisco)

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