Those walks back and forth along the corridors of the University which give him a feeling of freedom. His pace quickens until it acquires its own rhythm. His thoughts do likewise, they speed up until they become clear, freeing themselves from the superfluous details that surround them. Daniel can walk great distances and think many ideas. Solutions to study problems, proposals for new papers, new questions about the world, in short, digging around inside himself, in earnest. Not even these walks, however, are as pleasant as…as going to the library, searching for the section with books in Spanish and starting to look through it.

            The library. That place which frightened him as a young boy. Later he would dare to go in, even take out a book and return it with a delay of no longer than one month. Then it became almost pleasurable. And later still it became quite definitely an irreplaceable activity.

            Daniel goes to the section on Argentine literature. There, on the next to last shelf, is Cortázar. A lot of books, some written by him, others about him, some which are pure fakes, only the introduction is by him, others which are pure fill and no substance, some fifty pages in all squeezed out using big print and wide margins on small pages, old tricks of a devious editor. Although Daniel leafs through lots of books and takes out several by different authors, for some reason Cortázar becomes his anchor, his centrepoint (despite being at the back, against the wall) of that library.

            On his third visit, Daniel bends down and feels gas inside him. Without much ado, he looks round and seeing there is nobody in the area, he lets it out. The next time, after having found ‑‑at last‑‑ Someone walking around returned by some overdue reader, as he stands up he feels the need to release some air. And he does. He remembers, though, that of the four previous occasions on which he came to this section of the library, on three of them he had wind and on the other he cannot be quite sure. Yes, of course, bending down can act as an effective catalyst, but movement does not produce the intestinal disturbances themselves, it just helps to get rid of them, Daniel reflected quite logically.

            The matter was shut away for a year and a half until the University of Milan library was transferred to its new quarters. Cortázar on this occasion was within easy reach. Nevertheless, Daniel still felt the flatulence bubbling inside him. “Strange” he thought. “I used to go to the other library after lunch. But now it’s only ten o’clock in the morning.” The next time he went to the new building, he not only experienced the same need to release his wind (he had already wondered whether the causality was not the other way around, whether needing to release the air was not a way of remembering to go to the library, but no, to be quite honest with himself and his body, when he entered the library there was no wind waiting at the door), but it so happened that he had the terrible bad luck to do it when somebody was coming. Horror of horrors! Who could be coming to the Spanish section if not someone that he knew or might know? A luscious girl turned the corner of the row where Daniel was, and he made an obvious face as if to say “Who was the pig who made that smell?” The girl who pretended not to have felt anything moved on to the next row. Fortunately, Daniel did not know her, though as bad luck would have it he ran across her two weeks later at a party given by some Colombians. Out of sheer embarrassment he hardly spoke to her the whole evening.

            The same phenomenon occurred in different countries, at different times, after different types of meals. Though Daniel did not pay much attention to it, since in the meantime he had acquired almost all Cortázar’s works and he only went very occasionally to see if any had escaped his attention, he had gone through all the logical possibilities. None of them convinced him: he almost never got flatulence. In general he was restrained and moderate even in those kinds of matters. The length of time he stayed in the library varied: that could not be a factor. Nor could it be the day: it had even happened to him on a Sunday.

            After Italy came the United States. Even in the National Library in Buenos Aires it had happened. Frankly, Daniel could not understand what was behind all of this.

            The telephone rang at three o’clock in the morning. Quite asleep, Daniel reached over, feeling for the receiver. He got hold of it and guessing which end was the earpiece and which the mouthpiece, he answered:

“He…hello?”

“Daniel, old man, it’s Julio. Stop farting around, will you, and use the word fart.”

This story appears in Still…life, Mosaic Press, Canada. Copyright David Mibashan.