Jason Weiss
Meeting Borges
Tinta regada
1 de enero de 2025
May 1980, I was twenty-four and had just landed in Paris a couple months earlier, for what I thought might be six months which turned into nine years. I had also started writing freelance cultural journalism: at the offices of the International Herald Tribune, from the Weekend editor who had some list of upcoming events and appearances, I learned that Borges was going to be in town to receive the Cino Del Duca Prize. Of course, I knew nothing about the big award, but I had read several of his books and for a few years I had been translating the poetry and stories of Silvina Ocampo, his old friend.
Somehow, the idea of rustling up a newspaper story from the encounter was not my objective—if I could even gain entry. I had no special credentials, and the event was not exactly open to journalists; still, I was determined to try to talk my way inside. I went to a grand old palazzo in the swanky eighth arrondissement and explained to the doorman, who in turn summoned a gentleman, that I was translating a longtime friend of Borges and I wanted to meet him. This was not an approach they might have anticipated. Slightly puzzled, resigned, they let me in and I promptly ascended the marble stairway and got lost in the crowd.
I found Borges out back, seated in an armchair on a spacious terrace overlooking the garden. Various suits and gowns were fawning over him, so I bided my time until, eventually, the clouds parted and there he sat alone. I slipped into the seat beside him and introduced myself, all in one breath that I was translating Silvina and living in Paris now. I must have tried to launch forth in Spanish, as a courtesy and to show that I could—I don’t know how my French was good enough yet to make myself understood at the front door—but he responded in English right away. He said a few things about Silvina and that he saw her before he left and that she hadn’t much luck seeing her work in English yet, and I mentioned letters from her, stretching out the subject as long as I could. I had written to Silvina at one point asking about the possibility of an introduction from him, once I found a publisher for my translations, but I wasn’t going to bring that up.
Borges seemed amused by the diversion I provided, enough to ask where I was from. When I replied that I was from California, Berkeley, he regaled me with a celebration of California writers, starting with Bret Harte, whom I hadn’t much read. I may well have been taking mental notes about his roster of reading pleasures—we probably got as far as Steinbeck—yet I was still amazed by where I found myself at that moment. How was it possible? No doubt Borges could have expounded upon California writers the rest of the day, and I would have been glad to listen with the minimal prompts I could provide, but as our brief conversation out of the blue reached a pause, I began to notice others nearby smiling upon us, patiently waiting their turn. Whether or not I had overstayed my welcome, clearly it was time to politely take my leave, which I did, and before I knew the dream was over. The crowd closed in behind me as I giddily made my quiet exit.
On the landing inside I passed the bar, which I’d barely noticed on my arrival. Realizing I had not tasted a drop up till then, I ordered a whiskey to celebrate the encounter, and then I asked for a second whiskey. Well-fortified for the metro ride home across town to the funky little apartment I shared in lower Montparnasse, the journey passed in a blur and I only remember sitting at my table a while later, my trusty Olivetti Lettera 32 portable typewriter before me, as I banged out an aerogram to a friend in California telling of my fresh adventure, the carriage flying recklessly at every return.
