The Musical Brain: And Other Stories by César Aira Read Free Book Online

the sensory and the intuitive into the realm of pure science, and
yet—this was the supreme paradox—it was there that we found the true, the real
Athena
, in the form of a “single” issue, springing from our heads just
as the goddess whose name we had borrowed had sprung from the head of her
father.
    MAY 21, 2007

The Dog
    I WAS IN A BUS, sitting by the window, looking out at the street.
Suddenly a dog started barking very loudly nearby. I tried to see where it was. So
did some other passengers. The bus wasn’t very full: the seats were all occupied,
but there were just a few people standing up; they had the best chance of seeing the
dog, because they were looking from higher up and could see out both sides. Even for
someone sitting, as I was, buses provide an elevated view, as horses did for our
ancestors:
la perspective cavalière
. That’s why I prefer buses to cars,
which carry you so low, so close to the ground. The barks were coming from my side,
the sidewalk side, which was logical. Even so, I couldn’t see the dog, and since we
were going fast I figured it was too late; we would already have left him behind. He
had provoked the mild curiosity that always surrounds an incident or an accident,
but in this case, except for the volume of the barking, there was little to indicate
that anything had happened: the dogs that people walk in the city rarely bark except
at other dogs. So the attention of the passengers was already beginning to dissipate
. . . when suddenly it was refocused: the barking started up again, louder than
before. Then I saw the dog. He was running along the sidewalk and barking at the
bus, following it, racing to keep up. This really was strange. In the old days, in
country towns and on the outskirts of cities, dogs would run beside cars, barking at
their wheels; it’s something I remember well from my childhood in Pringles. But you
don’t see it anymore; it’s as if dogs had evolved and grown used to the presence of
cars. And besides, this dog wasn’t barking at the wheels of the bus but at the whole
vehicle, raising his head, staring at the windows. All the passengers were looking
now. Had the owner got onto the bus, perhaps, forgetting the dog or abandoning him?
Or maybe it was someone who’d attacked or robbed the dog’s owner? But no, the bus
had been driving along Avenida Directorio without stopping for several blocks, and
it was only in the current block that the dog had begun his chase. More elaborate
hypotheses—for example, that the bus had run over the dog’s owner, or another
dog—could be set aside, because there’d been nothing like that. It was a
Sunday afternoon and the streets were relatively empty: an accident could not have
gone unnoticed.
    The dog was quite big, and dark gray in color, with a pointed muzzle, halfway between
a purebred and a street dog, though street dogs are a thing of the past in Buenos
Aires, at least in the neighborhoods we were passing through. He wasn’t so big that
the mere sight of him was scary, but he was big enough to be threatening if he got
angry. And he seemed to be angry or, rather, desperate and distraught (for the
moment, anyway). The impulse that was driving him was not (or not for the moment, at
least) aggression but an urgent desire to catch up with the bus, or stop it, or . .
. who knows?
    The race continued, accompanied by barking. The bus, which had been held up by a red
light at the previous corner, was accelerating. It was driving along close to the
sidewalk, on which the dog was running, losing ground. We’d almost reached the next
intersection, where it seemed the pursuit would come to an end. But, to our
surprise, when we got there, the dog crossed to the next block and went on chasing
us, accelerating too, and barking all the while. There weren’t many people on the
sidewalk, otherwise he would have bowled them over, charging along like that, his
gaze fixed on the windows of the bus. His barks became louder and louder;