MODELO MATEMÁTICO DE LAS TURBINAS HIDROCINÉTICAS

So finally he comes, the young fool, and I lean from the parapet and tell him everything. The poison in the ears. The treachery. The lies. The huddling in incestuous bed with Gertrude and the degree of corruption. The young fool is shocked as well he should be and cries that revenge will be terrible and swift. He departs with promises but I have no hope. His record has always been high in potential, low in performance. Sometimes I wondered if he could be my issue and considering the evidence of later events perhaps he was not. Gertrude was never to be trusted.

Nonetheless, I am granted no other alternative so I wait. I wait and I wait as he waffles around, prays, flagellates himself, mumbles about the possibility of sin, flirts with that teasing, worthless bitch, Ophelia, who has no more sensibility than a swan. Claudius continues to prosper. He wallows in his office. He takes swift measure of Gertrude in incestuous bed and preaches saintly office outside. It is all too much to bear and when Hamlet desists from slaying him in the corridor at prayer I feel my patience snap. It is not easy existing in this difficult condition and there will be no peace, absolutely no peace at all as long as these affairs continue. Grumbling, furious, I drag myself to Gertrude’s chambers while he is berating her and brace

him. His eyes become round, shiny with disbelief but resolve fills his bearing. Responding to rustling behind the arras he draws his sword and runs it through the curtain, disposing of that prating, eavesdropping old fool, Polonius, father of the frivolous bitch. His consternation is enormous but as nothing to mine.

It is at that precise moment—and not earlier, I want to make it quite clear, not an instant earlier—that I finally lose all fatherly patience and resolve to take matters to a conclusion.

Claudius and I never got along. It was not only the matter of the succession, it was the corruption within him which I perceived from the first, the small cruelties, the weak, descending humiliation of a man who knew all his life that his older brother was the king not only in fact but spirit. He would spy on servants in the castle, set them at one another through small thefts, crush frogs in the moat, steal the jester’s cap and bells; past all of these indignities, armored by my certainty and contempt I swept. Gertrude fell in love with me at once; she never paid any attention to Claudius whatsoever until, for reasons of state, I was distracted from our alliance and gave Claudius the opportunity to insinuate himself. I am sure of this. Still, with all of his vices and the deadly indications of his character I never realized until the moment that the warm fluid dripped deep into my ear, sickening me and causing me to shriek with pain so quickly terminated, I never realized until that moment how he hated me; I thought that the cruelties came from envy, the envy from admiration.

But when he poisoned me, sending me into this gray, chained Denmark of souls tormented and unavenged, I became quite angry and resolved to set the situation to

right; the time was out of joint, as I reminded that snivelling Prince, and the obligation to correct it fell upon him.

* * *

Of course I should have looked more closely at Gertrude. If there is one quality which the unavenged netherworld grants it is ample time for recrimination and I should have known that the woman could never be trusted. Silly, frivolous bitches like Ophelia wear their hearts on their sleeves but Gertrude has not achieved her station without the exercise of cunning; it is possible that her relationship with Claudius preceded my murder. In fact it is possible that she put him up to it, that she gave him motive. “Just a little poison and I can be completely yours; you can be my little bloat king,” she might have murmured to him. This state of passage brings the most terrible thoughts and suggestions; never have I hated these people as I hate them now. Murder unavenged leaves one in these endless corridors, stalking, stalking, one does not really know where to turn, to whom to appeal, what to do to get out of this terrible state; I would never have turned to that hopeless conundrum I called my son if it had not been out of despair; if I had had the means I would have run Claudius through myself; why would I pace the battlements shouting in the wind for assistance if I were capable of anything on my own other than pleadings and prayer?

I was a just, a wise, a compassionate king; my wife was a slut, my son a disaster, my brother a traitor, nonetheless I brought to this domain a mild and sacrosanct order; it was only in this latter stage that I was driven to such extreme and destructive perceptions; to die and not be dead is—how can I put

this?—extremely embittering. Without the Prince’s task for evasion, flights of rhetoric, cheap, distracting and easily deterred lust I am left to confront, ah, endlessly, that doomed and chained specter: myself.

So I present myself to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, indistinguishable, jolly mercenaries with faces like smooth partitions to shield them from all reason. “I know who you are!” one of them says—I cannot tell them apart—and clutches the other. “We have heard all the reports.”

“Enough of that,” I say. “Throw him overboard. Then hasten back to Denmark and say that he was murdered by Polonius’s legions. This will most distress Claudius and he will have no suspicions when you ask for a private conference to grant further important information. Get him alone in quarters and I will run him through.” Strictly speaking this is a lie of course. I am blocked from direct action by the conditions of the curse. Nonetheless it will at least mark a beginning, some action at last, and it will keep me busy. The paralysis of the Prince has leached into me. “I will pay you well for your services,” I say. “After all I am still a king. I still have the court.”

They stare at me with their impermeable faces. “You are a ghost,” one of them says. “How can you pay us?”

“I have grand mystical powers. Trust me.”

“He is our schoolfellow,” one points out thoughtfully. “We owe him bonds of loyalty.”

“He intends to kill you,” I point out. “The orders are already planted in your luggage.”

“What an extremely treacherous court this must be.” “Oh, I can accede to that,” I agree. “I can certainly agree to that.”

Their cooperation is gained—they are a submissive pair, eager to please, with a deep faith in ghosts—but it does not work out nonetheless; the Prince gets wind of some treachery and speeds off the boat. Meanwhile the bumblers cannot locate the damning orders in their own luggage. The situation is hopelessly scrambled and upon our separate return to the court I find out that Ophelia has further complicated matters by drowning herself. Everyone seems to be done away with in this tragic legend except the real culprit. At chambers I confront the Prince who is drawing on his gloves, adjusting his sword, mumbling about business which must be swiftly attended to. “Oh,” he says, looking at me with dim and distracted countenance, “it’s you again. That was a really splendid production. You couldn’t have possibly done it better; I only wish that it had had better outcome. Have you come for your purse? I’m sure that was settled.”

I realize that in the dim light and because of his preoccupation he takes me for the Player King. My chains are not highly visible. “Yes, we have been paid,” I say. “And the king has confessed all in your absence. He pleads for release.”

“Then he shall have it.” Hamlet looks at me shrewdly. “Your accent is different,” he says. “Are you possibly an imposter?”

“Nothing is different,” I say, “and everything is different. But only you can bring this to an end.”

“I will not be intimidated,” Hamlet says. His expression becomes sullen. “Get out of here before I run you through.”

“You won’t run anyone through. Nothing ever happens in your world until someone throws herself into a pond.”

“Blackguard,” he says. He draws his sword. “I will not accept that.”

I laugh in his face and desert, leaving him there mumbling. The better part of apparition is disassembly through desire, although there is, of course, always the pain.

I withdraw, sulkily, to observe subsequent events. I know that nothing can happen and yet I cannot abandon the prospect of hope. Anything is preferable to stumbling and clanking on the parapet. Amazingly many events do occur. Gertrude is poisoned. Claudius is run through. Hamlet himself, in consternation at his burst of activity, opens himself to a palpable hit. At the end, most astonishingly, Fortinbras blesses them all. I know better but offer no comment. Sometimes it is better to cultivate a posture of diffidence. Besides, I know now that it is only a brief matter of time until I am released from my chains.

* * *

Claudius joins me on the towers, puts an arm around me confidentially. “Not so soon, you fool,” he says. “It isn’t over yet.” Gertrude, around a corner, winks. “Remember the three witches?” he says. “Remember Banquo’s ghost? Now we’ll have some real fun.”

“Fun?” I say. “Real fun?”

Gertrude sweeps against me regally, her own chains clanking. “Absolutely,” she says. “Just as soon as Lear gets on the heath, we can kick the hell out of him.”

“We can make Caliban squirm a little too,” Claudius says lovingly.

I feel the cool winds of the nether region tear through me like giggling knives.

Something sure as hell is rotten in the state of Denmark.

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