Woes of the True Policeman

Dr. Mario Bianchi, head of the Plastic Surgery Department, St. Peter’s Hospital, Orlando, Florida. Eight letters, dated 1964 to 1965, of a pseudoscientific nature. Arcimboldi expresses an interest in techniques of facial surgery, in nerve elongation, in techniques for bone implants, in “photographs of the inside of the face, the inside of the hands.” And he explains: “color photographs, of course.” Dr. Bianchi expresses an interest in knowing whether any of Arcimboldi’s novels have been translated in the United States, and mentions an upcoming trip to Paris with his wife and son during which they might meet in person.

Jaime Valle, professor of French literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma of Mexico. Five letters dated between 1969 and 1971. Subjects relating to the purchase of real estate, oceanfront properties, cabins in Oaxaca, hippies, peyote, María Sabina. Regarding Mexican literature: surprisingly, Arcimboldi has read only Mariano Azuela’s Los de abajo, in Anne Fontfreda’s translation, Paris, 1951. And a bit of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. It’s life in Mexico that interests me, not Mexican literature, he says. The last letter is a long defense of B. Traven, scorned by Jaime Valle as popular and facile.

Renato Leduc, whom he meets through a mutual friend, the exiled Panamanian Roberto Dole, black, homosexual, and pacifist. Ten letters dated between 1969 and 1974. Subjects: life in Mexico, the desert, the tropics, the places where it rains most and least. Leduc’s responses are clear and to the point. He goes so far as to send Arcimboldi photographs and maps, newspaper clippings and tourist pamphlets. He even presents him with a copy of his book Fábulas y poemas, 1966, and Arcimboldi promises to translate it, though nothing further is heard of the project.

Dr. John W. Clark, plastic surgeon, Geneva, Switzerland. Twenty letters between 1972 and 1975. Subjects: skin grafts, The Island of Dr. Moreau, the ultimate facelift.

Dr. André Lejeune, Lacanian psychoanalyst. Eighteen letters between 1963 and 1974. Discussions of literature from which it may be deduced that Dr. Lejeune is a reader to be reckoned with, as well as a shrewd and mordant critic. The final letters contain veiled threats. Arcimboldi discusses killings, people who talk about killings, blood, and silence.

Amelia De León, Mexican professor of French literature whom Arcimboldi meets on a brief trip to Oaxaca in 1976. Ten letters, all with some exotic postmark, like Mauritania or Senegal; all dated 1977. In them, Arcimboldi makes constant though oblique references to age, to the joys of being twenty-nine and about to turn thirty, which was the case of Professor De León in 1977. Her letters are cold and academic: Stendhal, Balzac, etc.

8

Hobbies and Training

The piano. Arcimboldi learned to play the piano when he was forty-five. His teachers were Jacques Soler and Marie Djiladi. He never had a piano at home or felt the need for one. And yet when he went out at night and came upon a piano at a bar or a friend’s house he would do anything to be allowed to play it. Then he would sit down and run his fingers over the keys and although he played very badly he forgot everything and sang-in a cracked and barely audible voice-blues, ballads, love songs.