纽约客2007短篇小说071001

Go Back Print this page Fiction The Insufferable Gaucho by Roberto Bolaño October 1, 2007 Text Size: Small Text Medium Text Large Text Print E-Mail Feeds Keywords Argentina; Lawyers; Judges; Ranches; Pampas; Borges, Jorge Luis; “The South” In the opinion of those who knew him well, Héctor Pereda had two outstanding virtues: he was a caring and affectionate father and an irreproachable lawyer with a record of honesty, in a time and place that were hardly conducive to such rectitude. As evidence of the first virtue, his son and daughter, Bebe and Cuca, whose childhood and adolescent years had been happy, later accused him of having sheltered them from the hard realities of life, focussing particularly on his handling of practical matters. Of his work as a lawyer, there is little to be said. He prospered and made more friends than enemies, which was no mean feat, and when he had the choice between becoming a judge or a candidate for a political party he chose the bench without hesitation, although it obviously meant passing up the opportunities for greater financial gain that would have been open to him in politics. After three years, however, disappointed by his judicial career, he gave up public life and spent some time, perhaps even years, reading and travelling. Naturally, there was also a Mrs. Pereda, née Hirschmann, with whom the lawyer was, as they say, madly in love. There are photos from that era to prove it: in one of them, Pereda, in a black suit, is dancing a tango with a blond woman, almost platinum blond, who is looking at the camera and smiling while the lawyer’s eyes remain fixed on her, like the eyes of a sleepwalker or a lamb. Unfortunately, Mrs. Pereda died suddenly, when Cuca was five and Bebe was seven. The young widower never remarried, although there were various women in his social circle with whom he was known to be on friendly (never intimate) terms, and who, moreover, had all the qualities required to become the new Mrs. Pereda. When the lawyer’s two or three close friends asked him why he remained single, his response was always that he didn’t want to impose the unbearable burden (as he put it) of a stepmother on his offspring. In Pereda’s opinion, most of Argentina’s recent problems could be traced to the figure of the stepmother. We never had a mother, as a nation, he would say; or, she was never there; or, she left us on the doorstep of the orphanage. But we’ve had plenty of stepmothers, all sorts, starting with the great Peronist stepmother. And he would conclude: Of all the countries in Latin America, we’re the experts on stepmothers. In spite of everything, his life was happy. It’s hard not to be happy, he used to say, in Buenos Aires, which is a perfect blend of Paris and Berlin, although if you look closely it’s more like a perfect blend of Lyons and Prague. Every day, he got up at the same time as his children, had breakfast with them, and dropped them off at school. He spent the rest of the morning reading at least two newspapers; and, after a snack at eleven (consisting basically of cold cuts and sausage on buttered French bread and two or three little glasses of Argentine or Chilean wine, except on special occasions, when the wine was, naturally, French), he took a siesta until one. His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceased wife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold. In the afternoon, he helped his children with their homework, or sat through Cuca’s piano lessons in silence, or Bebe’s English and French classes, given by two teachers with Italian surnames, who came to the house. Sometimes, when Cuca had learned to play a whole piece, the maid and the cook would come to listen, too, and the lawyer, filled with pride, would hear them murmur words of praise, which struck him at first as excessive, but then, on reflection, seemed perfectly apt. After saying good night to his children and reminding his domestic staff for the umpteenth time not to open the door to anyone, he went to his favorite café, on Corrientes, where he would stay until one at the very latest, listening to his friends or friends of theirs discussing issues that he suspected he would find supremely boring if he knew anything about them, after which he went back home, where everyone was asleep. Eventually, the children grew up. First Cuca got married and went to live in Rio de Janeiro; then Bebe started writing and indeed became a highly successful writer, which was a source of great pride to Pereda, who read each and every word his son published. Bebe went on living at home for a few more years (where else could he have had it so good?), after which, like his sister, he flew the nest. At first, the lawyer tried to resign himself to solitude. He had an affair with a widow, went on a long trip through France and Italy, met a girl named Rebeca, and finally contented himself with organizing his huge, chaotic library. When Bebe came back from the United States, where he had spent a year teaching at a university, Pereda had aged prematurely. Bebe was worried and tried not to leave his father alone too much, so sometimes they went to the movies or the theatre, where the lawyer would usually fall into a deep sleep, and sometimes Bebe dragged him along to the literary gatherings that were held at the Black Pencil Café, where authors, basking in the glory of some municipal prize, held forth at length on the nation’s destiny. When they talked about literature, Pereda was completely bored. In his opinion, the best Argentine writers were Borges and Bebe; any further commentary on the subject was superfluous. But when they started talking about national and international politics, the lawyer’s body grew tense, as if charged by an electric current. From then on, his daily habits changed. He began to get up early and look through the old books in his library, searching for something, though he couldn’t have said what. He decided to give up wine and heavy meals, because he realized that they were dulling his intellect. His personal hygiene also underwent a change. He no longer spruced himself up when he was going out. He soon stopped taking a daily shower, and even went to the park to read the paper without putting on a tie. His old friends hardly recognized this new Pereda as the lawyer they had known, who had been irreproachable in every respect. One day he woke up feeling more nervous than usual. He had lunch with a retired judge and a retired journalist, and laughed all the way through the meal. Afterward, as they were drinking Cognac, the judge asked him what he found so funny. Buenos Aires is collapsing, Pereda replied. The journalist thought that the lawyer had gone crazy and recommended some time by the sea, that invigorating air. The judge, less given to speculation, simply thought that Pereda had gone off on a tangent. A few days later, however, the Argentine economy went into meltdown. Accounts in American dollars were frozen, and those who hadn’t moved their capital (or their savings) offshore suddenly discovered that they had nothing left, or only a few bonds and bank bills the mere sight of which was enough to give them goosebumps, vague promises inspired in equal parts by some forgotten tango and the words of the national anthem. I told you so, the lawyer said to anyone willing to listen. Then, accompanied by his cook and his maid, he stood in long lines, like many other inhabitants of Buenos Aires, and entered into long conversations with strangers (who struck him as utterly charming) in streets thronged with people swindled by the government or the banks, or whomever. When the President resigned, Pereda was there among the protesters as they banged their pots and pans. Sometimes it seemed as if the elderly had taken control of the streets, old people of all social classes, and he liked that, although he didn’t know why; it seemed like a sign that something was changing, that something was moving in the darkness, although he was also happy to join in the wildcat strikes and blockades that quickly degenerated into brawling. In the space of a few days, Argentina had three different Presidents. It didn’t occur to anyone to start a revolution or mount a military coup. That was when Pereda decided to go back to the country. Before leaving, he explained his plan to the maid and the cook. Buenos Aires is falling apart; I’m going to the ranch, he said. They talked for hours, sitting at the kitchen table. The cook had been to the ranch as often as Pereda, who had always said that the country was no place for a man like him, a cultivated family man, who wanted to make sure that his children got a good education. His mental images of the ranch had blurred and faded, leaving only a house with a hole in the middle, an enormous, threatening tree, and a barn flickering with shadows that might have been rats. Nevertheless, that night, as he drank tea in the kitchen, he told his employees that he had hardly any money left to pay them (it was all frozen in the bank—in other words, as good as lost) and the only solution he had come up with was to take them to the country, where at least they wouldn’t be short of food, or so he hoped. The maid and the cook listened to him compassionately. At one point, the lawyer burst into tears. Trying to console him, they told him not to worry about the money; they were prepared to go on working even if he couldn’t pay them. The lawyer definitively rejected any such arrangement. I’m too old to become a pimp, he said with an apologetic smile. The next morning, he packed a suitcase and took a taxi to the station. The women waved goodbye from the sidewalk. The long, monotonous train trip gave him ample time for reflection. At first, the carriage was full. He observed that there were basically two topics of conversation: the country’s state of bankruptcy and how the Argentine team was shaping up for the World Cup in Korea and Japan. The press of passengers reminded him of the trains departing from Moscow in the film “Doctor Zhivago,” which he had seen some time ago, except that in the Russian carriages as filmed by that English director the talk had not been about ice hockey or skiing. What hope have we got, he thought, although he had to agree that on paper the Argentine selection looked unbeatable. When night fell, the conversations stopped, and the lawyer thought of his children, Cuca and Bebe, both of whom were abroad. He also thought of a number of women he had known intimately but had not expected to remember; silently, they emerged from oblivion, their skin covered with sweat, infusing his restless spirit with something like serenity, although it wasn’t altogether serene, perhaps not exactly a sense of adventure, but something like that. Then the train began to advance over the pampas, and the lawyer leaned his head against the cold glass of the window and fell asleep. When he woke, the carriage was half empty and there was a man who looked part Indian sitting beside him, reading a Batman comic book. Where are we? Pereda asked. In Coronel Gutiérrez, the man said. Ah, that’s all right, the lawyer thought, I’m going to Capitán Jourdan. Then he got up, stretched his legs, and sat down again. Out on the dry plain he saw a rabbit that seemed to be racing the train. There were five other rabbits running behind it. The first rabbit, running just outside the window, had wide-open eyes, as if the race against the train required a superhuman effort (or, rather, super-leporine, the lawyer thought). The rabbits in pursuit seemed to be running in tandem, like cyclists in the Tour de France. With a couple of big leaps, the rabbit bringing up the rear relieved the front-runner, which dropped back to last position, while the third rabbit moved up to second place, and the fourth moved up to third; and all the while the group was closing in on the solitary rabbit running beside the lawyer’s window. Rabbits, he thought, how wonderful! On the plains, there was nothing else to be seen: a vast, boundless expanse of scant grass under massive, low clouds, and no indication that a town might be near. Are you going to Capitán Jourdan? Pereda asked the Batman reader, who seemed to be examining every panel with extreme care, scrutinizing every detail, as if he were visiting a portable museum. No, he replied, I’m getting off at El Apeadero. Pereda tried to remember a station of that name but couldn’t. And what’s that, a station or a factory? The Indian-looking guy stared back at him fixedly: A station, he replied. He seems annoyed, Pereda thought. It wasn’t the sort of question he would normally have asked, given his habitual discretion. The pampas had made him inquire in that frank, manly, and down-to-earth way, he decided. When he rested his forehead against the window again, he saw that the rabbits in pursuit had caught up with the lone racing rabbit, and were attacking it ferociously, tearing at its body with their claws and teeth—those long rodents’ teeth, Pereda thought with a horrified frisson. He looked back and saw an amorphous mass of tawny fur rolling beside the rails. The only passengers who got off at Capitán Jourdan were Pereda and a woman with two children. The platform was half wood, half concrete, and in spite of his best efforts Pereda couldn’t find a railway employee anywhere. The woman and the children set off walking on a cart track, and although they were clearly moving away and their figures were visibly shrinking, it took more than three-quarters of an hour, by the lawyer’s reckoning, for them to disappear from the horizon. Is the earth round? Pereda wondered. Of course it is, he told himself, sitting down on an old wooden bench against the wall of the station, preparing to kill some time. Inevitably, he remembered Borges’s story “The South,” and when he thought of the store mentioned in the final paragraphs his eyes brimmed with tears. Then he remembered the plot of Bebe’s last novel, and imagined his son writing on a computer, in an austere room at a Midwestern university. When Bebe comes back and finds out I’ve gone to the ranch . . . , he thought in enthusiastic anticipation. The glare and the warm breeze gusting off the plain made him drowsy; he fell asleep. A hand shook him awake. A man as old as he was, wearing an old railway uniform, asked him what he was doing there. Pereda said he was the owner of the Álamo Negro ranch. The man stood there looking at him for a while, then said, The judge. That’s right, Pereda replied, there was a time when I was a judge. Don’t you remember me, Mr. Judge? Pereda scrutinized the man: he needed a new uniform and a haircut, urgently. Pereda shook his head. I’m Severo Infante, the man said. We used to play together when we were kids. But, che, that’s ages ago—how could I remember, Pereda retorted, and his voice, not to mention the words he had used, sounded odd, as if the air of Capitán Jourdan had invigorated his vocal cords or his throat. Of course, you’re right, Mr. Judge, Severo Infante said, but I feel like celebrating anyway. Bouncing like a kangaroo, the station employee disappeared into the ticket office, then came out with a bottle and a glass. Your health, he said, handing Pereda the glass, which he half filled with a clear liquid that seemed to be pure alcohol. Pereda took a sip—it tasted of scorched earth and stones—and left the glass on the bench. He said that he had given up drinking. Then he got up and asked the way to his ranch. They went out the back door. Capitán Jourdan is over there, Severo said, just beyond the dry pond. Álamo Negro is the other way, a bit farther, but you can’t get lost in the daylight. You look after yourself, Pereda said, and set off in the direction of his ranch. The main house was almost in ruins. That night it was cold, and Pereda tried to gather some sticks and light a campfire, but he couldn’t find anything to burn, and in the end he wrapped himself up in his overcoat, rested his head on his suitcase, and fell asleep, telling himself that tomorrow would be another day. He woke with the first light of dawn. The well still had water in it, although the bucket had disappeared and the rope was rotten. I need to buy a rope and a bucket, he thought. For breakfast, he ate what was left of a packet of peanuts he had bought on the train. He inspected the multitudinous low-ceilinged rooms of the ranch house. Then he set off for Capitán Jourdan, and was surprised to see rabbits but no cattle on the way. He observed them uneasily. Occasionally, they would hop toward him, but he had only to wave his arms to make them disappear. Although he had never been particularly keen on guns, he would have been glad of one then. Apart from that, the walk did him good: the air was fresh, the sky was clear; it was neither hot nor cold. From time to time he spotted a tree all alone out on the plain, and the vision struck him as poetic, as if the tree and the scenery of the deserted countryside had been arranged just for him and had been awaiting his arrival with an imperturbable patience. None of the roads in Capitán Jourdan were paved, and the housefronts were thickly coated with dust. As he entered the town, he saw a man asleep beside some flowerpots containing plastic flowers. My God, what a dump! he thought. The main square was broad, and the town hall, built of brick, gave the collection of squat, abandoned buildings a slight air of civilization. He asked a gardener who was sitting in the square smoking a cigarette where he could find a hardware store. The gardener looked at him curiously, then accompanied him to the door of the only hardware store in town. The owner, an Indian, sold him all the rope he had in stock: forty yards of braided hemp, which Pereda examined at length, as if looking for loose threads. Put it on my account, he said. The Indian looked at him, nonplussed. Whose account? he asked. Héctor Pereda’s, Pereda said, as he piled up his new possessions in a corner of the store. Then he asked the Indian where he could buy a horse. There are no horses left here, he said, only rabbits. Pereda thought it was a joke and responded with a quick, dry laugh. The gardener, who was looking in from the threshold, said that there might be a strawberry roan to be had at Don Dulce’s ranch. Pereda asked him how he could get there, and the gardener walked a couple of blocks with him, to a vacant lot full of rubble. Beyond lay open country. The ranch was called Mi Paraíso, and it didn’t seem as run-down as Álamo Negro. A few chickens were pecking around in the yard. The door to the shed had been pulled off its hinges and someone had propped it against a wall nearby. Some Indian-looking kids were playing with bolas. A woman came out of the main house and said good afternoon. Pereda asked her for a glass of water. Between mouthfuls, he asked if there was a horse for sale. You’ll have to wait for the boss, the woman said, and went back into the house. Pereda sat down beside the well and kept himself busy brushing away the flies that were buzzing around everywhere, as if the yard were used for pickling meat, Pereda thought, although the only pickles he had encountered were the ones he used to buy many years ago at a store that imported them directly from England. After an hour, he heard the sound of a jeep and stood up. Don Dulce was a little pink-faced guy, with blue eyes, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, although by the time he arrived it was starting to get cool. An even shorter guy got out of the jeep as well: a gaucho attired in baggy bombachas and a diaperlike chiripá, who threw Pereda a sidelong glance and started carrying rabbit skins into the shed. Pereda introduced himself. He said he was the owner of Álamo Negro, and that he was planning to do some work on the ranch and needed to buy a horse. Don Dulce invited him to dinner. Around the table sat the host, the woman who had appeared earlier, the children, the gaucho, and Pereda. There was a fire in the hearth, not to heat the room but for grilling meat. The bread was hard and unleavened, the way the Jews make it, Pereda thought, remembering his Jewish wife with a touch of nostalgia. But no one at Mi Paraíso seemed to be Jewish. When it came to buying the horse, everything went smoothly. Choosing was not a problem, because there was only one horse for sale. When Pereda said he might need a month to pay, Don Dulce made no objection, although the gaucho, who hadn’t said a word all through the meal, stared at him warily. Afterward, they saddled the horse, showed him the way, and said goodbye. How long has it been since I rode a horse? Pereda wondered. For a few seconds he worried that his bones, accustomed to the comfort of Buenos Aires and its armchairs, might break under the strain. The night was dark as pitch or coal. Stupid expressions, thought Pereda. European nights might be pitch-dark or coal-black, but not South American nights, which are dark like a void, where there’s nothing to hold on to, no shelter from the elements, just empty, storm-whipped space, above and below. May the rain fall soft on you! he heard Don Dulce shout. God willing, he replied from the darkness. On the way back to his ranch, he dozed off a couple of times. He woke up from his second nap on one of the streets of Capitán Jourdan. He saw a corner store that was open. He heard voices, and someone strumming a guitar, tuning it but never settling on a particular song to play, just as he had read in Borges. For a moment, he thought that his destiny, his screwed-up American destiny, would be to meet his death like Dahlmann in “The South,” and it seemed unfair, partly because he now had debts to repay and partly because he wasn’t ready to die, although Pereda knew that death is an occurrence for which one is never ready. Seized by a sudden inspiration, he entered the store on horseback. Inside, he found an old gaucho, strumming the guitar, the owner, and three younger guys sitting at a table, who started when they saw the horse come in. Pereda was inwardly satisfied by the thought that the scene was like something from a story by di Benedetto. Nevertheless, he set his face and approached the zinc-topped bar. He ordered a glass of aguardiente, which he drank with one hand, while in the other he held his riding crop discreetly out of view, since he hadn’t yet bought himself the traditional sheath knife. He asked the owner to put the drink on his account, and on his way out, as he passed the young gauchos, he told them to move aside because he was going to spit. This was meant as affirmation of his authority, but before the gauchos could grasp what was happening the gob of phlegm had flown from his lips; they barely had time to jump. May the rain fall soft on you, he said, before disappearing into the darkness of Capitán Jourdan. From then on, Pereda went into town each day on his horse, which he named José Bianco. He often went to buy tools with which to repair the ranch house, but he also passed the time of day chatting with the gardener, or with the keepers of the general store and the hardware store, whose livelihoods he diminished day by day, as he lengthened the accounts he had with each of them. Other gauchos and storekeepers soon joined in these conversations, and sometimes even children came to hear the stories Pereda told. Naturally, he always cut an impressive figure in those stories, although they weren’t exactly cheerful. For example, he told them how he had once owned a horse very like José Bianco, which had been killed in a confrontation with the police. Luckily, I was a judge, he said, and when the police come up against a judge or an ex-judge they usually back off. Police work’s about order, he said, while judges defend justice. Do you see the difference, boys? The gauchos would usually nod, although they weren’t at all sure what he was talking about. Sometimes he went to the station, where his friend Severo would reminisce at length about their childhood pranks. Although Pereda was privately convinced that he couldn’t have been as silly as he seemed in those stories, he let Severo talk until he got tired or fell asleep, then walked out onto the platform to wait for the train and the letter it was supposed to bring. Finally, the letter arrived. In it his cook explained that life was hard in Buenos Aires, but that he shouldn’t worry, because both she and the maid were going to the house every two days, and it was in perfect order. As for sending him money, they were looking into it, she assured him; the problem was, they still hadn’t found a way to make sure it wouldn’t be filched by some racketeer on the way. In the evening, as he was returning to Álamo Negro at a gallop, the lawyer could sometimes see a ruined village in the distance that seemed not to have been there before. Sometimes a slender column of smoke rose from the village and dissipated in the vast sky over the plains. Occasionally, he encountered the vehicle in which Don Dulce and his gaucho got around. They would stop to talk and smoke for a while, Don Dulce and the gaucho sitting in their jeep, the lawyer still mounted on José Bianco. Don Dulce was out after rabbits. Pereda once asked him how he hunted them, and Don Dulce told his gaucho to show the lawyer one of the traps, which was halfway between a birdcage and a rat trap. Pereda never saw a single rabbit in the jeep, only the skins, because the gaucho skinned them on the spot, beside the traps. After those chats, Pereda always felt that Don Dulce was somehow diminishing the stature of the nation. Rabbit hunting! What sort of job is that for a gaucho? he asked himself. Then he would give his horse an affectionate pat. Come on, che, José Bianco, let’s go, he’d say, and head back to the ranch. One day, the cook turned up. She had brought money for him. She rode behind him on José Bianco halfway from the station to the ranch, then they walked the rest of the way, in silence, contemplating the plain. By this time, the ranch house was more comfortable than it had been when Pereda arrived; they ate rabbit stew, and then by the light of an oil lamp the cook handed over the money she had brought, and explained where it had come from, which objects from the house she had been forced to sell off at a fraction of their value. Pereda didn’t even bother to count it. The next morning, when he woke up, he saw that the cook had worked all night cleaning some of the rooms. He reproached her gently. Don Héctor, she said, it’s like a pigsty here. Two days later, in spite of the lawyer’s entreaties, she took the train back to Buenos Aires. Away from Buenos Aires I feel like another person, she explained to him as they waited on the platform, just the two of them. And I’m too old to become someone else. Women, they’re all the same, Pereda thought. Everything is changing, the cook explained to him. The city was full of beggars, and respectable people were organizing neighborhood soup kitchens just to have something to put into their stomachs. There were at least ten different kinds of currency, not counting the official money. No one was bored. People were desperate, but not bored. As she spoke, Pereda watched the rabbits that had appeared on the other side of the tracks. The rabbits looked at them, then bounded away across the plain. Sometimes it’s as if this country were full of lice or fleas, the lawyer thought. With the money the cook had brought, he paid his debts and hired a pair of gauchos to repair the roof of the ranch house, which was falling in. The problem was that although he knew next to nothing about carpentry, that was more than the gauchos knew. One was called José and must have been around seventy. He didn’t have a horse. The other was called Campodónico and was probably younger, although he could also have been older. Both wore the traditional baggy bombachas, but their headgear consisted of caps that they had made themselves from rabbit skins. Neither had a family, so after a while they both came to live at Álamo Negro. At night, by the light of a fire out in the open, Pereda whiled away the time recounting adventures that had taken place exclusively in his imagination. He spoke to them of Argentina, Buenos Aires, and the pampas, and he asked them which of the three they would choose. Argentina’s a novel, he said, so it’s make-believe at best. Buenos Aires is full of crooks and loudmouths, a place like Hell, with nothing going for it except the women, and the writers, some of them, not many, though. But the pampas—the pampas are eternal. A limitless cemetery, that’s what it’s like. Can you imagine that, boys, a limitless cemetery? The gauchos smiled and confessed that it was actually pretty hard to imagine something like that, since cemeteries are for humans, and although the number of humans is big, there’s a limit to it. Ah, but the cemetery I’m talking about, Pereda said, is an exact copy of eternity. With the money he had left, he went to Coronel Gutiérrez and bought himself a mare and a colt. The mare would let itself be ridden, but the colt was not much use for anything, and had to be treated with extreme caution. Sometimes, in the evening, when he was sick of working or of doing nothing, Pereda went into Capitán Jourdan with his gauchos. He rode José Bianco; the gauchos rode the mare. When he entered the store, a respectful hush fell over the clients. Some were playing cards, others were playing checkers. When the mayor, who was prone to depression, turned up, there would always be four brave volunteers for a game of Monopoly that would last until dawn. This habit of playing games (not to speak of Monopoly) seemed ill-bred and dishonorable to Pereda. A store is a place where people converse or listen in silence to the conversations of others, he thought. A store is like an empty classroom. A store is a smoky church. Some nights, especially when gauchos from out of town or some disoriented travelling salesman turned up, Pereda felt a powerful desire to start a fight. Nothing serious, just a scrap, but with real knives, not chalked sticks, like kids use. Other nights, he would fall asleep between his two gauchos and dream that his wife was leading their children by the hand and scolding him for the way he had let himself lapse into brutishness. And what about the rest of the country? the lawyer replied. But that’s no excuse, che, rejoined Mrs. Pereda, née Hirschmann. At which point the lawyer would have to agree, and tears would well up in his eyes. In general, however, his dreams were peaceful, and when he woke up in the morning he was in good spirits and keen to start work. Although, to tell the truth, not a lot of work was done at Álamo Negro. The repairing of the ranch-house roof was a disaster. In order to start a kitchen garden, the lawyer and Campodónico bought seeds in Coronel Guttiérrez, but the earth, it seemed, would accept no foreign seed. For a time, the lawyer tried to get the colt, which he called “my stud horse,” to cover the mare. If the mare had a filly, all the better. That way, he imagined, he could soon build up a breeding stock that would lead the recovery; but the colt didn’t seem to be interested in covering the mare and, although he searched for miles around, Pereda couldn’t find a sire, since the gauchos had sold their horses to the slaughterhouse, and now got around on foot, or on bicycles, or hitched rides on the endless dirt tracks of the pampas. We have fallen, we’re down, Pereda would say to his audience, but we can still pick ourselves up and go to our deaths like men. He, too, had to set rabbit traps to survive. In the evenings, when he left the house with his men, he would often let José and Campodónico empty the traps, along with a new recruit known as the Old Guy, while he set off alone for the ruined village. There he found some young people, younger than his gauchos, but so disinclined to converse and so nervous that it wasn’t even worth inviting them for a meal. Occasionally, he would go to the railway line and spend a long time there waiting for the train to pass, mounted on José Bianco, both of them chewing grass stalks. Often enough, no train would pass, as if that part of Argentina had been erased from memory as well as from the map. One afternoon, as Pereda was vainly attempting to get his colt to mount the mare, he saw a car driving over the plain, coming directly toward Álamo Negro. The car pulled up in the yard, and four men got out. At first, he didn’t recognize his son. Nor did Bebe realize that the old man in bombachas with a beard, long tangled hair, and a bare chest tanned by the sun was his father. Son of my soul, Pereda said, hugging him, blood of my blood, vindication of my days, and he would have gone on like that if Bebe hadn’t stopped him to introduce his friends, two writers from Buenos Aires and the publisher Ibarrola, who loved books and nature, and had financed the trip. In honor of his son’s guests, the lawyer had a big bonfire built in the yard that night, and sent for the foremost of Capitán Jourdan’s guitar-strumming gauchos, warning him beforehand that he was to do strictly that: strum, without playing any song in particular, in accordance with the country way. Campodónico and José were dispatched to fetch ten litres of wine and a litre of aguardiente, which they brought back from Capitán Jourdan in the mayor’s van. A good stock of rabbits was laid in, and one was roasted for each person present, although the visitors from the city didn’t seem particularly keen on rabbit meat. That night, there were more than thirty people gathered around the fire, besides Pereda’s gauchos and the guests from Buenos Aires. By three in the morning, the elders had set off back to Capitán Jourdan, and there were just a few young men left at the ranch, wondering what to do, since the food and drink had run out, and the guys from the city had gone to sleep a while ago. The next morning, Bebe tried to persuade his father to return to Buenos Aires with him. Things are gradually settling down, he said. Personally, he was doing all right. He gave his father a book, one of the many gifts he had brought, and told him that it had been published in Spain. Now I’m a well-known author all through Latin America, he explained. But the lawyer had no idea what his son was talking about. He asked if he was married yet and, when Bebe said no, suggested he find himself an Indian woman and come to live at Álamo Negro. An Indian woman, Bebe repeated in a tone of voice that the lawyer thought was wistful. Among the gifts his son had brought was a Beretta 92 pistol with two clips and a box of ammunition. The lawyer looked at the pistol in amazement. Do you honestly think I’m going to need it? he asked. You never know, Bebe said. You’re really on your own here. They saddled up the mare for Ibarrola, who wanted to take a look at the countryside, and Pereda, riding José Bianco, spent the rest of the morning showing him around. For two hours, the publisher held forth in praise of the idyllic, unspoiled life led, as he saw it, by the inhabitants of Capitán Jourdan. When he spotted the first of the ruined houses, he broke into a gallop, but it was much farther away than he had thought, and before he got there a rabbit leaped up and bit him on the neck. The publisher’s cry vanished at once into the vast open space. From where he was, all Pereda could see was a dark shape springing from the ground, tracing an arc toward the publisher’s head, then disappearing. Dumb-ass Basque, he thought. He spurred José Bianco, and as he approached he saw that Ibarrola was holding his neck with one hand and covering his face with the other. Without saying a word, Pereda removed the hand from Ibarrola’s neck. There was a bleeding scratch under his ear. Pereda asked him if he had a handkerchief. The publisher replied in the affirmative, and only then did Pereda realize that he was crying. Put the handkerchief on the wound, he said. Then he took the mare’s reins, and they made their way to the ruined house. There was no one there; they didn’t dismount. As they returned to the ranch, the handkerchief that Ibarrola was holding against the wound gradually turned red. They said nothing. When they got back, Pereda ordered his gauchos to strip the publisher to the waist, and they flung him onto a table in the yard. Pereda washed the wound, which he proceeded to cauterize with a knife heated until the blade was red-hot, then made a dressing with another handkerchief, held in place with a makeshift bandage: one of his old shirts, which he soaked in aguardiente, what little was left, more as a ritual than as a sanitary measure, but it couldn’t do any harm. When Bebe and the two writers came back from a walk around Capitán Jourdan, they found Ibarrola unconscious on the table, and Pereda sitting beside him in a chair, observing him intently, like a medical student. Behind Pereda, equally absorbed by the sight of the wounded man, stood the ranch’s three gauchos. The sun was beating down mercilessly in the yard. Son of a bitch! shouted one of Bebe’s friends. Your dad’s gone and killed our publisher. But the publisher wasn’t dead, and made a full recovery, except for the scar, which he would later display with pride, explaining that it had been caused by the bite of a jumping snake. From then on, there were often visitors from the city. Sometimes Bebe came on his own, with his riding clothes and his notebooks, in which he wrote vaguely melancholy stories with vaguely crime-related plots. Sometimes he would come with luminaries from Buenos Aires, usually writers, but quite often a painter, to Pereda’s satisfaction, since painters, for some reason, seemed to know much more about carpentry and bricklaying than the bunch of gauchos who hung around Álamo Negro all day like a bad smell. On one occasion, Bebe came with a psychiatrist. She was blond and had steely blue eyes and high cheekbones, like an extra from the “Ring” cycle. The only problem with her, Pereda thought, was that she talked a lot. One morning, he invited her to go for a ride. The psychiatrist accepted. He saddled up the mare, mounted José Bianco, and they headed west. As they rode, the psychiatrist told him about her job in a Buenos Aires mental hospital. She told him (and the rabbits that sometimes surreptitiously accompanied the riders) that people were becoming more and more unbalanced: studies had proved it, which led the psychiatrist to conjecture that perhaps mental instability was not so much a disease as a stratum of normality, just below the surface of normality as it was commonly conceived. All this sounded like Chinese to Pereda, but, intimidated as he was by the beauty of his son’s guest, he refrained from saying so. At midday, they stopped for a lunch of rabbit jerky and wine. The wine and the meat, a dark meat that shone like alabaster when touched by light and seemed to be literally seething with protein, brought out the psychiatrist’s poetic streak, and, as Pereda noticed out of the corner of his eye, prompted her to let her hair down. At about five in the afternoon, they spotted the shell of a ranch house on the horizon. Excited, they spurred their mounts in that direction, but at six they were still not there, which led the psychiatrist to remark on how deceptive distances could be. When they finally arrived, five or six malnourished children came out to greet them, along with a woman wearing a very wide skirt that bulged voluminously, as if there were some kind of animal under it coiled around her legs. The children kept their eyes fixed on the psychiatrist, who adopted a maternal attitude, though not for long, since she soon noticed, as she later explained to Pereda, a malevolent intention in their gaze, a mischievous plan formulated, so she felt, in a language full of consonants, shrieks, and resentment. Pereda, who was coming to the conclusion that the psychiatrist was not entirely in her right mind, accepted the skirted woman’s invitation to dinner, and during the meal, which they ate in a room full of old photographs, learned that the owners of the ranch had gone off to the city a long time ago (the woman couldn’t say which city) and the laborers, having ceased to receive their monthly pay, had gradually drifted away, too. The woman also told them about a river and flooding, although Pereda had no idea where the river could be, and no one in Capitán Jourdan had mentioned any kind of flood. Predictably, they ate rabbit stew, which their hostess had prepared with an expert hand. As they were getting ready to go, Pereda pointed out the way to Álamo Negro, his ranch, in case they ever got tired of living out there. I don’t pay much, but at least there’s company, he said seriously, as if explaining that death came after life. Then he gathered the children around him and proceeded to dispense advice. When he had finished speaking, he saw that the psychiatrist and the skirted woman had fallen asleep on their chairs. Day was about to break when Pereda and the psychiatrist left. The light of a full moon shimmered on the plain, and from time to time they saw a rabbit jump, but Pereda paid no attention, and after a long spell of silence he softly began to sing a song in French that his late wife had liked. The song was about a pier and mist, and unfaithful lovers, as all lovers are in the end, he thought indulgently, and places that remain utterly faithful. Sometimes, as he walked or rode José Bianco around the dubious boundaries of his ranch, Pereda thought that nothing would ever be the same unless the cattle returned. Cows, where are you? he shouted. In winter, the skirted woman turned up at Álamo Negro with the children in tow. Some people in Capitán Jourdan knew her and were pleased to see her again. The woman didn’t talk much, but she certainly worked harder than the six gauchos Pereda now had on the payroll, to use the expression liberally, since he often went for months without paying them. And, indeed, some of the gauchos had what could be called an idiosyncratic concept of time. They could adapt to a forty-day month without any major headaches. Or to a four-hundred-and-forty-day year. None of them, in fact, Pereda included, wanted to think about time. By the fireside, some of the gauchos talked about electroshock therapy, while others spoke like professional sports commentators, except that they were commenting on a match played long ago, when they were twenty or thirty and belonged to some gang of hooligans. Sons of bitches, Pereda thought tenderly, with a manly sort of tenderness, of course. One night, he asked them about their political opinions. At first the gauchos were reluctant to talk about politics, but when he finally got them to open up it turned out that, in one way or another, they were all nostalgic for General Perón. This is where we part company, Pereda said, and pulled out his knife. For a few seconds he thought that the gauchos would do the same and his destiny would be sealed that night, but the old guys recoiled in fear and asked what he was doing, for God’s sake. What had they done? What had got into him? The flickering fire threw tigerlike stripes of light across their faces, but as he gripped his knife, trembling, Pereda felt that Argentina’s shame or the shame of Latin America had turned them into tame cats. That’s why the cattle have been replaced by rabbits, he thought as he turned around and walked back to his room. I’d slaughter the lot of you if you weren’t so pathetic! he shouted. The next morning, he was afraid that the gauchos might have gone back to Capitán Jourdan, but they were all still there, working in the yard or drinking maté by the fire, as if nothing had happened. A few days later, the skirted woman arrived from the ranch out west and Álamo Negro began to change for the better, starting with the food, because the woman knew ten different ways to cook a rabbit, where to find herbs, how to start a kitchen garden and grow some fresh vegetables. One night the woman walked along the veranda and went into Pereda’s room. She was wearing only a petticoat; the lawyer made space for her in his bed, and spent the rest of the night looking up at the canopy, feeling that warm and unfamiliar body against his ribs. Day was breaking by the time he fell asleep, and when he woke up the woman was gone. Got yourself shacked up, Bebe said when his father informed him. Only technically, the lawyer pointed out. By that stage, with money borrowed here and there, he had been able to enlarge the stables and acquire four cows. When he was bored in the afternoons, he would saddle up José Bianco and take the cows out for a walk. The rabbits, who had never seen a cow, stared in amazement. It seemed that Pereda and the cows were bound for the end of the world, but they had just gone out for a walk. He spoke to the gauchos gathered in the general store one evening. I believe we are losing our memory, he said. And about time, too. For once, the gauchos looked at him as if they grasped the significance of his words even better than he did himself. Shortly afterward, he received a letter from Bebe summoning him to Buenos Aires in order to sign some papers so that his house could be sold. What should I do, Pereda wondered, take the train or ride? That night he could hardly sleep. He imagined people thronging the sidewalks as he made his entry mounted on José Bianco. His entry into Buenos Aires, as he imagined it, had the ambience of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem or Brussels as depicted by Ensor. All of us make our entry into Jerusalem sooner or later, he thought as he tossed and turned. Every single one of us. And some never come out again. But most do. And then we are seized and crucified. Especially poor gauchos. He also imagined a downtown street, the quintessential Buenos Aires street, with all the charms of the capital; he was riding along it on his trusty José Bianco, while from the windows above white flowers began to rain down. Who was throwing the flowers? He couldn’t tell, since, like the street itself, the windows of the buildings remained empty. It must be the dead, Pereda supposed drowsily. The dead of Jerusalem and the dead of Buenos Aires. The next morning, he spoke with the gauchos and told them that he would be away for a while. None of them said anything, although that night at dinner the skirted woman asked if he was going to Buenos Aires. Pereda nodded. Then take care and may the rain fall soft on you, the woman said. Two days later, he took the train and went back the way he had come more than three years before. When he arrived at Constitución Station, a few people stared as if he were wearing fancy dress, but most were not particularly perturbed by an old man attired like a cross between a gaucho and a rabbit trapper. The taxi-driver who took him to his house inquired where he was from, and when Pereda, lost in his own ruminations, failed to answer, he asked if he spoke Spanish. By way of reply, Pereda pulled out his knife and proceeded to cut his nails, which were as long as a wild cat’s. No one answered the door. The keys were under the mat; he went in. The house seemed clean, perhaps too clean—it smelled of mothballs. Feeling exhausted, Pereda trudged to his bedroom and flopped onto the bed without taking off his boots. When he woke up, it was dark. He went into the living room without switching on any lights, and telephoned his cook. First, he spoke to her husband, who wanted to know who was calling, and didn’t sound convinced when he identified himself. Then the cook came on. I’m in Buenos Aires, Estela, he said. She didn’t seem surprised. Something new happens every day here, she replied when he asked if she was happy to know that he was back home. Then he tried to call his maid, but an impersonal female voice informed him that the number he had dialled was not in service. Feeling dispirited and perhaps also hungry, he tried to remember the faces of his employees, but the images he could summon were vague: shadows moving in the corridor, a commotion of clean laundry, murmurs and hushed voices. The amazing thing is that I can remember their phone numbers, Pereda thought, sitting in the dark living room of his house. Shortly afterward, he went out. Wandering aimlessly, or so he thought, he ended up at the café where Bebe used to meet his artistic and literary friends. From the street, he looked into the spacious, well-lit, bustling interior. Bebe and an old man (An old man like me! Pereda thought) were presiding over one of the most animated tables. At another, closer to the window through which Pereda was spying, he saw a group of writers who looked as if they worked in advertising. One of them, who had an adolescent air, although he was over fifty and maybe even over sixty, kept putting a white powder up his nose and holding forth on world literature. Suddenly, the eyes of the fake adolescent met Pereda’s. For a moment, their gazes locked, as if, for each of them, the presence of the other were a gash in the ambient reality. Resolutely and with surprising agility, the writer with the adolescent air sprang to his feet and rushed out into the street. Before Pereda knew what was going on, the writer was upon him. What are you staring at? he demanded, brushing remnants of white powder from his nose. Pereda looked him up and down. The writer was taller and slimmer and possibly stronger than he was. What are you staring at, you rude old man? What are you staring at? The fake adolescent’s gang was looking on, following the scene as if something similar happened every night. Pereda realized that he had grasped his knife, then let himself go. He took a step forward and, without anyone noticing that he was armed, planted the point of the blade, though not deeply, in his opponent’s groin. Later, he would remember the look of surprise on the man’s face, in which terror blended with something like reproof, and the writer’s words as he groped for an explanation (Hey, what did you do, asshole?), as if there could be an explanation for fever and nausea. I think you need a napkin, Pereda remarked in a strong, clear voice, pointing at his adversary’s bloodstained crotch. Mother, the cokehead said, looking down. When he looked up again, he was surrounded by friends and colleagues, but Pereda was gone. What should I do, the lawyer wondered as he roamed through his beloved city, finding it strange and familiar, marvellous and pathetic. Do I stay in Buenos Aires and become a champion of justice, or go back to the pampas, where I don’t belong, and try to do something useful. I don’t know . . . maybe something with the rabbits, or the locals, those poor gauchos who accept me and put up with me and never complain. The shadows of the city declined to provide an answer. Keeping quiet, as usual, Pereda thought reproachfully. But when the day began to dawn he decided to go back. ♦ (Translated, from the Spanish, by Chris Andrews.) ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTIAN NORTHEAST