A Zero-Sum Game. Eduardo Rabasa

night adapting one of her former mantras to fit the occasion. Using the same essential elements, she tweaked them to appeal to the dormant aspirations of her voters:

      SINCE NEEDS ARE DICTATED BY ABILITIES, VOTE FOR ORQUÍDEA LÓPEZ

      Every apartment in Villa Miserias received Orquídea López’s campaign leaflet, which basically asked the residents why their futures should be limited by other people’s aspirations. To illustrate her case, she used the example of Chona, the elderly lady in Building 23, whose putrid pension barely met the needs of herself and her beloved canaries. Orquídea’s leaflet demonstrated that if she didn’t have to to pay the communal water charge, Chona would be able paint the rusty cages in which her only companions lived, and buy special food to make their plumage glossier. And neither was there any reason why she should pay the same for the repairs to the front door of the building when she clearly used it less than the neighboring families.

      As Selon Perdumes’ outstanding pupil, Orquídea made use of the storytelling tradition to reinforce her message: the reverse side of her leaflet recounted her personal version of a fable clearly demonstrating the benefits of the adage that the whole is never more than the sum of its separate parts. She explained to the residents that the writer of these words was one of the first people to become aware of the serious error of talking to humans about what they should be, instead of what they really are. However, the fable needed updating since hers was not an age in which innocent little bees fitted the bill. The new metaphor had to be omnivorous, must have to fight for its life before going out to face the world, and must even be the enemy of its own siblings. Orquídea was fascinated to learn of a creature that was in the habit of throwing itself to the ground, its tongue hanging out and its eyes turned upwards, so that when its adversary—taking the animal for dead—relaxed its guard, it was able to flee. Without such cunning, the young animal would not even reach maturity as the mother only fed and protected two thirds of each litter, so that the least able were even spared the suffering of going through life, dragging their shortfalls along behind them. Orquídea was overcome by an ecstasy of inspiration and put the finishing touches to her electoral leaflet with a speed that was surprising, even for her.

      THE FABLE OF THE OPOSSUMS

      IN A POSSUM’S NEST

      THERE’S NO PLACE FOR FOWL

      THOSE WHO CAN’T GAIN THE BREAST

      HAVE TO THROW IN THE TOWEL

      THE BEES THAT GIVE HONEY

      HAVE GONE UNDERNEATH

      STORIES THAT ARE SUNNY

      ARE NO USE TO THE THIEF

      ENOUGH OF FALSE SERMONS!

      CAN’T YOU SEE THERE’S NO BALM?

      WHY WISH FOR DELUSIONS?

      THEY CAN ONLY DO HARM

      WRONG MAKES FOR RIGHT

      OH FABLES OF YOUTH!

      WRONG BECOMES MIGHT

      AND THAT IS THE TRUTH

      THE INDIVIDUAL IS KING

      THE GROUP IS PURE SCHLOCK

      NO COMPETITION WITHOUT SWINDLING

      WHY IS THAT A SHOCK?

      LAWS PROTECT THE ELITE

      IT’S TIME TO TURN ON THE LIGHT

      WHY TAKE A BACK SEAT?

      JUDGE THE POOR IN THEIR PLIGHT

      EACH TO HIS SORORITY

      ACCRUING HIS WEALTH

      BLESSED BE POVERTY

      LET’S DRINK TO ITS HEALTH

      IF WE WANT TO KEEP OUR BIRTHRIGHT

      LET’S FORGET SAYING THANKS

      SQUARE UP FOR THE PRIZE FIGHT

      WE’RE BREAKING THE RANKS

      VOTE FOR ME: I AM YOU.

      The residents agreed: the time had come to leave paternalism behind. Forty-four buildings decided to come of age. By a majority vote, Orquídea López became the first female president-elect.

      The process gave rise to another local tradition: Juana Mecha had been head of the Villa Miserias cleaning staff for years. The sound of her broom was an unofficial signal for the start of each working day. She was so regular in her habits that mothers knew if they were late dropping the kids off at school by her location when they left the building. She was also given to expressing herself in enigmatic maxims, most of which were ignored by the people to whom they were addressed.

      In order to avoid the rush hour on public transport, Orquídea would set out for the office early, so she was always the first to leave. Her automatic “Good morning, Señora Mecha” was returned each day by some snigger-inducing phrase. On one of the days when Orquídea was still hesitating over whether or not to sign up as a candidate, her greeting produced a cryptic barb: “If you put everything in the wash together, the clothes lose their color.” Orquídea had spent the whole morning trying to decipher her words. When she decided on an interpretation, she knew what to do next and hurried to inform Perdumes that she accepted his challenge. She was completely unaware she’d inaugurated the strict custom of consulting the beige-uniformed oracle.

      5

      Looking back on it, Max Michels realized that Orquídea López’s historical legacy had been, first, to act as a lever in the destruction of the existing structures, and then to be a slightly inefficient steamroller. She had smoothed the path for Villa Miserias to leave Villa Miserias behind and become Villa Miserias.

      Her term in office inaugurated the reign of quantity: the will to count everything. She had promised a form of justice tailored to fit each individual’s specific dimensions. This required the residents to provide information that could be statistically represented: the hours of sunlight entering through each window; the number of minutes they spent sitting on the communal benches; their proximity to the green areas that purified the air. A coefficient was created to measure the benefit each individual obtained from the collective services, including such variables as the frequency with which the barrier was raised to let cars through, usage of the entry phone system and even the amount of time the lobby of each building remained dirty due to the order in which they were swept. The residents began to view one other in terms of their numerical values. The premise involved putting a value on the cost-benefit ratio of each and every soul living on the estate.

      Orquídea’s other great legacy was the transformation of the security force. The guards were used to busting their breeches watching television in the security booth: they didn’t even have to shift from their chair to raise the barrier; the rounds they made of the estate were more a matter of stretching their legs. Orquídea started by putting them into uniform: the tight-fitting black suits and berets gave them an air more comical than threatening. There was an attempt to have them armed with pistols, but money was short and, in any case, they didn’t know how to use them. Pepper spray became the preferred option. The first week, two guards ended up in the sick bay with their faces burning from the effects of the new security device, one due to a practical joke played by a colleague, and the other from having pointed the can in the wrong direction while testing how far the spray reached.

      They had soon caught two petty criminals trying to burgle an apartment in Building 24. The circumstances couldn’t have been more compromising: the petty thieves had broken in in broad daylight, armed with a screwdriver, stinking of Resistol glue, and had gotten stuck in the internal wiring duct while making their escape. It was more a rescue attempt than an arrest. They were left sitting for hours, in full view, surrounded by a patrol of the reinvigorated security squad. The verdict was almost unanimous: the residents felt safer after the professionalization of the forces of law and order.

      To mark the end of Orquídea’s term in office, Perdumes organized a farewell dinner. He gave her a token of appreciation, specially commissioned for the occasion: a bronze sculpture on a marble base, with a gold plaque inscribed with