Little Eyes Read online

  PRAISE FOR LITTLE EYES

  LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2020

  ‘The ‘toys’ Schweblin has created are the perfect hybrid between a pet and a social network, enabling her to dissect problems that touch all of our lives: the dark side of the internet; the global epidemic of loneliness; the dumb inertia that leads us to jump on board with the latest trend… As always in the worlds she creates, the real monsters are to be found not in the outside world, but inside each of us.’

  New York Times (Spanish edition)

  ‘A dystopian novel that is necessary, hypnotic, irresistible.’

  Elle Italia

  ‘The finest novel of the last five years. Quite exceptional. Little Eyes will certainly feature in future lists of the ten best novels of this century.’

  Luisgé Martín, author of The Same City

  ‘Little Eyes is a short, powerful, disquieting novel. The story explores the grey area that constitutes an invasion of privacy, and the line between intimacy and exhibitionism. Samanta Schweblin guides the narrative with a skilful hand reminiscent of her very finest short stories. A gifted storyteller, but above all, a true writer.’

  La Razón

  ‘[Schweblin] has a gift for fiction that is pure, original, revelatory.’

  El País

  ‘Little Eyes calls to mind the world of Black Mirror. The result is suffocating and addictive in equal measure; combining the minutiae of domestic life with a picture of the dark side of technology in a disconcertingly natural style. A story about voyeurism, and the pleasure of looking at the world through someone else’s eyes.’

  El Mundo

  ‘An insightful reflection on solitude and privacy.’

  ABC

  ‘[Schweblin is] a literary explorer of 21st-century fears.’

  La Vanguardia

  ‘Schweblin plunges herself once again into the disturbing limits of what we think of as ‘normal’.’

  Letras Libres

  ‘This isn’t science fiction; this is the here and now.’

  El Diario

  ‘Like a true master, Schweblin manages to lure us in with a story that leaves us both bruised and fascinated.’

  Culturas

  ‘The undisputed star of Latin American fiction.’

  ABC Sevilla

  ‘The fantastic and strange worlds of Samanta Schweblin’s work are described with wisdom and ferocity.’

  La Repubblica

  ‘Little Eyes…puts [Samanta Schweblin] at the top of the list of masterful new horror book authors.’

  Book Riot

  PRAISE FOR FEVER DREAM

  SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 BY THE OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN & EVENING STANDARD

  ‘A book to read in one frantic sitting – bold, uncanny and utterly gripping.’

  Observer Best Fiction of 2017

  ‘A nauseous, eerie read, sickeningly good.’

  Emma Cline, bestselling author of The Girls

  ‘Transcends the sensational plot elements to achieve a powerful and humane vision.’

  Financial Times Best Books of 2017

  ‘A gloriously creepy fable.’

  Guardian Best Fiction of 2017

  ‘Dazzling, unforgettable, and deeply strange. I’ve never read anything like it.’

  Evening Standard Books of the Year, 2017

  ‘Mesmerizing.’

  Washington Post

  ‘Read this in a single sitting and by the end I could hardly breathe. It’s a total mind-wrecker. Amazing.Thrilling.’

  Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers & Lanny

  ‘Punches far above its weight… The sort of book that makes you look under the bed last thing at night and sleep with the light on.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Subtle, dreamy and indelibly creepy.’

  Economist Best Books of 2017

  ‘Each layer is soaked in dread, and the dread goes so deep that it works even on the third reading.’

  London Review of Books

  ‘The genius of Fever Dream is less in what it says than in how Schweblin says it, with a design at once so enigmatic and so disciplined that the book feels as if it belongs to a new literary genre altogether.’

  The New Yorker

  ‘Samanta Schweblin’s novella is a skilfully paced and intricate omen that tears not just at ecological anxieties but at the core of maternal love.’

  Times Literary Supplement

  ‘[Schweblin] won cult critical acclaim over here for her 2017 novella Fever Dream – a scalp-prickling eco nightmare.’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘Unapologetically weird and shudderingly creepy. From the opening page, there is the sense of rolling toward a conclusion it might be better not to find out about.’

  Daisy Johnson, author of Everything Under

  ‘To call Schweblin’s novella eerie and hallucinatory is only to gesture at its compact power; the fantastical here simply dilates a reality we begin to accept as terrifying and true… Schweblin’s book is suffused with haunting images and big questions.’

  New York Times Book Review

  ‘Fever Dream is worth reading for its inventiveness alone. Schweblin gives us memorable characters and a haunting parable.’

  Huffington Post

  ‘Exceptionally written…a superlative work of the imagination, resonant, beguiling and truly memorable.’

  Spectator

  PRAISE FOR MOUTHFUL OF BIRDS

  ONE OF 2019’S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS ACCORDING TO VOGUE, VANITY FAIR, THE MILLIONS, HUFFINGTON POST, NYLON, LITERARY HUB, THE MANCUNION, BOOK RIOT & REMEZCLA

  ‘This is our world, and sharp-focused, but stripped of its usual meanings… Brutal violence is twisted into horrific, intensely experienced art.’

  Guardian

  ‘Chilling short stories by the Argentine author of Fever Dream confirm her as a master of the macabre… The finest offerings here beg to be illustrated by Paula Rego then animated by David Lynch – only two fellow masters of the macabre could do Schweblin’s work justice.’

  Financial Times

  ‘Superb… The author’s flair for intertwining surrealism with delicate emotionality is again on full display… Schweblin takes on the desire to love, to parent, and to care for one’s own body – hardly extraordinary themes – and invests them with a fresh poignancy.’

  Vogue, Most Anticipated Books of 2019

  ‘At once fantastically out there and real to the point of being haunting.’

  Vanity Fair

  ‘Delving into the cryptic depths of the human psyche, this is a highly imaginative and thought-provoking collection, deftly translated by Megan McDowell.’

  Observer

  ‘These are fictions of indisputable power.’

  Telegraph

  ‘Fabulous… An eerie blend of the supernatural and the all too real.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘The Grimm Brothers and Franz Kafka pay a visit to Argentina in Samanta Schweblin’s darkly humorous tales of people who have slipped through cracks or fallen down holes into alternate realities.’

  J.M. Coetzee

  TRANSLATED BY

  MEGAN McDOWELL

  Before starting the engine, make sure people are clear of the danger area.

  Digger safety manual, 2018

  Will you tell us about the other worlds out among the stars—the other kinds of men, the other lives?

  Ursula K. Le Guin, THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS

  Little Eyes

  South Bend

  THE FIRST THING they did was show their tits. The three of them sat on the edge of the bed facing the camera, took off their shirts, and one by one, removed their bras. Robin had almost nothing to show but she did it anyw
ay, paying more attention to the looks she got from Katia and Amy than to the game itself. If you want to survive in South Bend, she’d heard the girls say once, you have to make friends with the strong.

  The animal’s camera was installed behind its eyes, and sometimes it spun around on the three wheels hidden in its base, moving forward or backward. Someone was controlling the creature from somewhere else, and they didn’t know who it was. The animal looked like a simple and artless plush panda bear, though really it was more similar to a football with one end sliced off so it could stand upright. Whoever was on the other side of the camera was trying to follow them without missing a thing, so Amy picked up the panda and put it on a chair so it would be right at the height of their tits. The gadget was Robin’s, but everything Robin had was also Katia’s and Amy’s: that was the blood pact they had made on Friday, the pact that would join them together for the rest of their lives. And now they each had to do their own little show, so they got dressed again.

  Amy put the animal back on the floor, picked up the bucket she’d brought from the kitchen, and placed it upside down over the panda. The bucket moved nervously, blindly, around the room. It collided with notebooks, shoes, and clothing strewn on the floor, which seemed to make it grow more desperate. Amy started to pant and let out excited moans, and the bucket stopped moving. Katia joined in the game, and they acted out a long and profound simultaneous orgasm.

  “That doesn’t count as your show,” Amy warned Katia as soon as they managed to stop laughing.

  “Of course not,” said Katia, and she darted out of the room. “Get ready!” she cried as she ran down the hall.

  Robin didn’t usually feel all that comfortable with these games, though she admired Katia’s and Amy’s nerve, and the way they talked to boys, and how they managed to keep their hair always smelling good and their nails perfectly painted. When the games crossed certain lines, Robin wondered if they might not be testing her. She’d been the last one to join the “club,” as they called themselves, and she tried hard to be worthy.

  Katia returned to the room with her backpack. She sat down in front of the bucket and freed the panda.

  “Pay attention,” she said, looking at the camera, and the bear’s eyes followed her.

  Robin wondered if it could understand them. It seemed to hear them perfectly well, and they were speaking English, which is what everyone speaks. Maybe speaking English was the only good thing about having been born in a city as terribly boring as South Bend.

  Katia opened her backpack, took out her yearbook, and looked for the class photo. Amy clapped and shouted:

  “You brought the little whore? You’re gonna show him?”

  Katia nodded. She flipped the pages eagerly, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips. When she found the girl she was looking for, she opened the album wide and held the photo in front of the bear. Robin peered over the book to see. It was Susan, the weird girl from her biology class that the club bullied for fun.

  “They call her Big Ass,” said Katia. She pursed her lips a couple of times, the way she did whenever she was about to do some high-level mischief, which was what being a member of the club demanded. “I’m going to show you how to make some free money with her,” Katia told the camera. “Robin, darling, could you hold the book while I show the gentleman his job?”

  Robin went over and held the book, unsure. Amy looked on curiously; she didn’t know Katia’s plan either. Katia scrolled through her phone until she found a video, and then she held the screen up in front of the bear’s eyes. In the video, Susan lowered her stockings and underpants. It seemed to be filmed from the floor of the school bathroom, inside a stall; maybe the camera had been set up between the trash can and the wall. They heard some farts, and the three of them rolled with laughter, and they cried out in pleasure when, before flushing, Susan stood looking down at her own shit.

  “This chick is loaded, my dear,” said Katia. “Half for you and the other half for us. It’s just that the club can’t blackmail her again, the teachers already have their eyes on us.”

  Robin didn’t know what they were talking about, but it wasn’t the first time the club hadn’t included her in its most illegal activities. Soon Katia’s show would be over and it would be her turn, and she hadn’t thought of anything. Her hands were sweating. Katia took out her notebook and a pen and wrote down some information.

  “Here’s Big Ass’s full name, phone number, e-mail, and mailing address,” she said as she held up the notebook alongside the photo.

  “And just how is our little guy going to get us our share of the money?” Amy asked Katia, winking at the camera and the presumed man behind it. Katia hesitated. “We don’t know who the hell he is,” said Amy. “That’s why we showed him our tits, right?

  Katia looked at Robin, as if asking her for help. It was in those brief moments that they counted on her, when Katia and Amy reached the heights of their individual rapaciousness and went to war with each other.

  “How is the gentleman going to give us his e-mail, huh?” Amy went on, mocking Katia’s plan.

  “I know how,” said Robin.

  They both looked at her in surprise.

  This would be her show, she thought, this was how she would emerge unscathed from the situation. The panda also turned toward her, trying to follow what was happening. Robin put the book down, went to her wardrobe, and opened a few drawers. She came back with a Ouija board that she opened and set down on the floor.

  “Get on,” she said to the animal.

  And the bear did. The three plastic wheels on its base easily maneuvered onto the cardboard; it moved across the length of the alphabet, as if investigating. Though its body took up more than one letter at a time, soon enough they understood which one it was pointing at, hidden between its wheels. The bear settled in under the arch of the alphabet and waited. It apparently knew exactly how to use a Ouija board. Robin wondered what she would do when the other girls left and she was alone again with this bear, now that she’d shown it her tits and had taught it a way to communicate with her.

  “Awesome,” said Amy.

  And Robin’s mouth twisted into a smile.

  “Which of the three of us do you think has the best tits?” asked Katia.

  The bear moved quickly over the board’s letters.

  THEBLOND

  Katia smiled proudly, clearly aware it was true.

  How had she not thought of the Ouija board trick sooner? Robin wondered. She’d had the bear in her room for over a week, rolling around aimlessly. She could have talked calmly with him; maybe he was someone special, a boy she could have fallen in love with, and now she was ruining everything by letting Katia and Amy take over.

  “Do you accept the deal with Big Ass?” asked Katia, showing him the photo of Susan once more.

  The bear moved, started to write again.

  WHORES

  Robin frowned. She felt hurt, although maybe the bear’s insult spoke well of him: she knew what they were doing wasn’t right. Katia and Amy looked at each other and smiled proudly, stuck their tongues out at the bear.

  “How crude,” said Amy. “Let’s see, what else does the gentleman have to say to us?”

  “Yeah, what else are we, my little dildo?” Katia egged him on, blowing him sensual kisses with her hand. “What else would you like us to be?”

  YOUTHREE

  They had to concentrate to follow the words.

  WILLPAYME

  The three of them looked at one another.

  TITSRECORDED400PERTITIS2400DOLLARS

  Amy and Katia looked at each other a few seconds and burst out laughing. Robin was clutching her shirt, squeezing hard, struggling to force a smile.

  “And who exactly is going to pay you, huh?” Amy asked, and pretended to be about to lift up her shirt again.

  OTHERWISETITSTOSUSANSEMAIL

  For the first time, Amy and Katia got serious. Robin couldn’t decide whose side she should take; maybe her p
anda bear was a vigilante.

  “You can send them to whoever you want,” said Amy. “We have the best tits in the city. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Robin knew that didn’t include her. Amy and Katia high-fived. Then the bear started to dance over the board, writing nonstop, spelling words that Robin could barely manage to read.

  IHAVEVIDEOSROBINSMOTHERSHITTINGANDROBINSSISTERMASTURBATINGX6

  It took concentration to follow letter by letter, but they couldn’t look away.

  FATHERSAYINGTHINGSTOMAID

  Amy and Katia were watching the bear’s dance in fascination, patient as they waited for each new humiliation.

  ROBINNAKEDANDROBINTALKINGSHITABOUTAMYONTHEPHONE

  Amy and Katia looked at each other. Then they looked at Robin, and they weren’t smiling now.

  ROBINPRETENDINGTOBEAMYANDTOBEKATIAANDTOKISSTHEM

  The bear went on writing, but Amy and Katia stopped reading. They got up, gathered their things, and stormed out, slamming the door.

  Trembling, while the bear kept moving over the board, Robin tried to figure out how the hell to turn the thing off. It didn’t have a switch—she’d already noticed that—and in her desperation she couldn’t find any other solution. She picked it up and tried to open the base with the point of a pair of scissors. The bear spun its wheels in an attempt to escape, but it was helpless. Robin couldn’t find any crack to pry open, so she returned the bear to the floor and it went straight back to the board. Robin kicked it off. The bear squealed and she cried out—she didn’t know it could make noise. She picked up the board and threw it across the room. She turned the key to lock her bedroom door and went back to chase the panda with the bucket as though she were trying to trap a giant spider. She managed to catch it and sat on the bucket, staying there a moment clutching the sides, holding her breath every time the bear hit against the plastic and trying hard not to cry.