I Am Like the King of a Rainy Nation
About the book
Despite the violent narratives present since its beginnings, Argentine literature does not have a strong tradition of serial killer stories, even though, in recent decades, our fascination with such characters has filled our screens with films and TV series about them. In this urban Gothic novel, Scott expands this dark and elegant lineage, not as homage but as exploration: a study of a genre on the brink of extinction, in order to bid it farewell or reinvent it.
The novel is steeped in cruelty and contempt, betrayal and cynicism, but also an unceasing—even nostalgic—search for sensuality, beauty, and justice. While serial killer fiction is often categorized by the psychology of its perpetrators (hedonists, power seekers, missionaries, visionaries), I Am Like the King of a Rainy Nation resists classification: it is all of these and none at the same time. It is, instead, an attempt to push beyond escapist entertainment and remain—against the ideological dogma of the time—a space where passions and social imaginaries are examined rather than silenced.
Excerpt
AEROPARQUE
On Saturdays, I lie down facing the sun, like a dog that’s got all its needs met. That’s just a figure of speech—I don’t really like the sun that much. But what I do is go to Aeroparque, one of Buenos Aires’s main airports, and spend the whole day there, reading, jotting things down, watching the river, or strolling through the airport’s shopping area.
On Sundays, however, a sense of vagueness prevails—a vagueness that may stem from emptiness or lethargy, the bitter substance that Sundays are made of. Sundays are, by convention, a form of ending, and endings are always as precise as they are desperate. Gray, fiery, electric days. Whirlpools of sadness. I’ve learned this, but I don’t always neutralize its effect: when God rests, the weight of the world falls upon mankind.
I once tried to repeat on Sunday everything I had done on Saturday, but it didn’t work. Even though I took the same route to Aeroparque, repeating the same actions and summoning the same thoughts that had filled me with excitement just twenty-four hours earlier, Sunday was nothing more than a poor copy, a dull imitation. The pulse of the city, which on Saturday had seemed brimming with life, felt muffled and mechanical to me on Sunday; the buildings that on Saturday had shown me their discoveries, their clumsiness, and their ambitions, were on Sunday merely expressionless masses, large mirrored blocks of concrete, architecture without charm; the river itself, this immense river, which on Saturday had seemed to me like a sea of sand, a brilliant myth worthy of its name, on Sunday was nothing more than a muddy plain, an accumulation of dirty water, trash, and remoteness.
I decided it was better not to go out on Sundays; I prefer to stay home, confined, so I don’t have to endure the anxiety of anticipation. Even if confinement sets in motion a whole series of numbing rituals; a whole variety of practical duties: online shopping, cleaning, fixing, throwing things away, tidying up. Surrendering to the ceaseless demands of things. Cultivating order. An order that I myself very quickly disrupt, because I get stuck, I make mistakes, I rush. Or I end up getting distracted; I start dwelling on details and minor things. I become an astronaut or a visionary who records and examines every object—without recognizing it—with a rigor that is both scientific and religious. An astronaut or visionary who, in his quest to unravel the mystery, becomes fascinated and is forever ensnared. That’s how the hours go by, how they fade away, how they’re wasted on banality and triviality; then afternoon comes, followed by night, and in the end all I’m left with is the certainty and the excitement that I won’t be able to sleep either.
I quell that frenzy without drama, taking the antidote—the appropriate over-the-counter dose to help me fall asleep; the effective chemistry that defeats and postpones any anxiety, madness, or temptation. Sundays, with few exceptions (an unexpected plan, discovering or rediscovering an album, a rainy afternoon, a book) usually end that way. As evening falls, like the birds, I climb into the trees. A sedative shields me from dreams and nightmares until the next morning.
I’m not the only one. Unless love exists (unless it can be trusted wholeheartedly), on Sundays, no one can escape the world showing them its absurd, disfigured face—its monstrous face, covered in hair, blemishes, and seams. On the rare occasions when I go out, I pay close attention; I watch couples strolling by, friends who’ve chosen to meet up, families proudly showing themselves off; and none of them can quite shake off that feeling of mourning, that somber makeup, that smudged, clownish lipstick.
On Sundays, I don’t even care about women. Their bodies—otherwise an intriguing driving force—become ghosts, spirits, wisps of smoke; hollow, harmless images.
But on Saturdays, especially Saturday mornings, the world is a beginning that holds all beginnings. An exuberant, solitary island that I must explore because it hides a treasure for me: the hidden waterfall, the chest buried in the forest, a key word: Fulfillment? Happiness? Liberation? My part, then, is to discover and travel that path with serenity and patience. Until I am lost. Or until I sweep the cross on the beach.
I’m exaggerating. None of that happens; nothing is that pathetic: no paths, no losses, no maps, no treasures. Merely a postcard I return to on the morning of a day off. The river, the airplanes, the placid, hypnotic landscape of what seems to unfold at will.
Translated by Lucía Ronco - Edited by Marita Propato
