by Hebe Uhart
His mother had told him:
“To fall asleep you must count sheep. Sheep that jump over a fence, one after another they jump on over. Sheep—not bees—because bees buzz from flower to flower so you can’t count them.”
What if I count dogs? the boy said to himself. He closed his eyes and started counting dogs. But the dogs made a horrible ruckus, they ran in a pack and they didn’t jump over the fence one after another. One got tangled up in the wire fence, another barked with his ears perked up.
I’m going to count sheep, he thought.
He closed his eyes and one little sheep appeared all alone, his coat a little mucky. The sheep reluctantly nibbled a bit of grass. He seemed somewhat sad and certainly didn’t want to cross the fence. No way.
The boy couldn’t sleep because the next day his class at school was going on a field trip to Buenos Aires, on a bus, and he had never been on a field trip. That morning at school the kids had all jumped up and down shouting:
“Field trip! Field trip!”
He had to take a lunchbox with him on the field trip, with sandwiches and apples. Then he thought, Is the lunchbox packed? I’d better go check.
He got up and went to the kitchen and confirmed that the sandwiches and apples had been packed. Then his mother noticed that he was up and about and she said:
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
His mother took him back to bed and said:
“Alright now, go to sleep.” She gave him a kiss and tucked him back into bed because he’d taken off all the covers.
Then he started to see sheep, one after another. They were fat sheep, with soft curly wool. Up went their little hooves and one…Up went their little hooves and two…And they continued prancing on by. It was as if they were floating. The sheep kept getting bigger; now everything was pale, soft, wispy, a white mass drifting slowly, and he fell asleep.
The Wandering Dutchman
ONCE upon a time there was a Dutchman who traveled so, so much that he barely had enough clothes to stay put in one place. He always wore his shorts, his indestructible thick sandals (the Dutch used to wear clogs, but then they caught up with the times and starting wearing sandals, which make the same clunky noise as they walk), and sunglasses. He carried a flashlight so he could always shine a light on anything he saw—bugs, storefronts, or tile floors. He carried all this and much more in his heavy pack, which he wore on his back throughout the countryside and cities of the world. And he traveled the world so much that he’d already seen the kangaroos of Australia, the bottlenose whales of Alaska, the customs of the people of Bali, and the tombs of the pharaohs. And when he met up with his traveler friends to exchange tips they all relied on him, because he was the one who kept his guidebooks in alphabetical order by country. He would never say it out loud, but sometimes when they named a place he would think, “I’ve been there” or “I’ve been there three times.” He didn’t speak up because he didn’t want to come off as someone who’s better than everyone else. But now, for the first time in his life, he was stumped: he didn’t know where to go. He unfolded a huge map in his room, as big as the room itself, and after studying it he felt as if he’d already been on a trip. Where to go? To the North Pole? But it was winter now. To Africa again, to see new animals? But it was summer in Africa. To Fiji? Yes, but not quite yet. Farther north, farther south, not quite yet, I’ve already been there. He had yet to discover himself among all those maps that are supposedly meant to orient oneself. Finally, feeling flustered—and when he was flustered he always said “Hans, tribauss, mackassen”—he tossed a coin: heads for north, tails for south. It came up south and he almost cheated at his own game and tossed the coin again. But since he was so honest and respectful of his own fate, even though he thought going south sounded absurd, he traveled to Argentina. He’d never been there and he loved the idea of discovering somewhere new.
When he got to Calle Florida, a steady stream of people walked in one direction and another mass walked in the other—it was a pedestrian highway, without any cars. At times he got lost, or tripped over. The street was filled with banks showing the exchange rate in dollars and he wanted to change money, but the bank employee didn’t understand his English. The Dutchman’s name was Goran Shikendanz and Goran didn’t understand the banker’s English either. At least three or four more employees came over to try and figure out what he was saying, each of whom understood something entirely different: one of them thought he needed to use the bathroom, another that he was looking for a hotel with a private bathroom, and the third just played dumb. And poor Goran really put his foot in it, because one thing led to another and they asked him his name. He answered “Juan Pérez,” which figured in his guidebook as a very common name in Buenos Aires, and he’d already noticed how puzzled people looked when he told them his real name. But when he replied “Juan Pérez” in his thick Dutch accent, they all burst out laughing. Then he overheard one banker saying to another:
“There’s no sense in beating a dead horse.”
The employees turned their backs on him, so he got out his dictionary: What did horses have to do with anything? Why were they talking about horses when he was just trying to exchange money? Besides, why would anyone beat a poor horse? Bewildered by these thoughts, he asked a girl walking along Calle Florida for the name of a street that wasn’t in his guidebook. The girl was sophisticated, very tanned, and she looked like an expert in all trades. She glanced at him coldly out of the corner of her eye and said:
“No clue.”
* * *
—
He became even more perplexed when he got to the corner of Bartolomé Mitre and Florida: there were some Peruvians playing music from the Altiplano. They were pretty good. Next to them a sign read: AWAY WITH THE CLOSED-LIST SYSTEM. Across the street—not listening to the music and clearly indifferent to the closed lists—a bunch of people were pounding on the door of a bank with little hammers, saying: “Thieves! Low lives!” Each group had their own set of onlookers, like at some sort of fair. Next to the Peruvians there was a lady dancing a little waltz all on her own. Referring to the Peruvians, a man standing next to her said:
“Who would stop to watch such a thing!”
To be on the safe side Goran didn’t say anything, but another man who’d overheard the first one said:
“What a moron.”
He had to look up the meaning of “moron” and “closed list” in his dictionary. And then, with only an inkling of understanding, he headed off to his hotel.
When he walked into his hotel room the windows were closed, boarded up. If there was one thing Goran couldn’t stand it was boarded-up windows. So he said “Hans, tribauss, mackassen,” and was about to burst into a fit of rage, but then he suddenly lost heart. He said to himself, What am I doing here? Who told me to come here? Whenever he was out traveling around the world, far from home, he remembered his dog Guga: with his dog everything would have been different. But since he’d experienced these same emotions so many times, he was reassured knowing that the first day one arrives in a new place isn’t like the rest: on the first day everything seems disconnected, rough around the edges, but then, hour by hour, day by day, those rough edges start to smooth over. That was what he most enjoyed about traveling. By the third day, even the sky, which at first seems strange and unknown, becomes friendly, as if to say: I am the same sky covering the whole planet. If only he could have a dog in Buenos Aires. In India they’d let him keep a dog, a parrot, and a monkey. But now, when he got a good look at the hotel concierge, he realized how preposterous this wish was: the concierge’s hair and moustache were dyed black, and the dye-job made him look angry. So Goran set back out into the street with his small backpack (he kept three bags inside the big backpack), and went to eat at a café that served coffee, food, and drinks. While he ate he listened in on the conversation at the table next to him, in an
attempt to learn some Spanish. One fellow said:
“Uff, today sure is jorobado…”
Jorobado? He looked the word up in his dictionary and read: Joroba: the camel’s hump. How could the day be humpbacked? And then he asked the waiter how to get somewhere:
“Uff, getting there will be jorobado.”
Goran asked:
“Why? Are there many hills?”
“No,” replied the waiter. “In other words, getting there is complicated.”
And then he understood that, in Spanish, saying “The camel es jorobado” means the camel has a hump, but “The camel está jorobado” means there’s something wrong with the camel. He was further confused when someone at the table next to him said:
“That guy? He’s top dog.”
But there weren’t any dogs in sight. It was a mystery, they were alluding to something else. And since they were taking about people, someone else spoke up:
“That guy? Nah, he’s a pichi.”
What could pichi mean? He looked it up in his dictionary and it said: Big hairy armadillo. By the man’s derogatory tone, there couldn’t be anything nice or pleasant about running into one of those creatures; he’d have to ask around. But now they’d moved on to talking about money and checks, and one was saying to the other:
“You’ll get your money—when pigs fly.”
Just when was that? The national holidays were listed in his guidebook: National Flower Day, Mother’s Day, Animal’s Day—but since when did pigs have their own special day? And just how would they get up in the air? In hot air balloons? Or maybe there was a special day for flying kites with pigs on them. He couldn’t find the answer in his guidebook and he really wanted to go over and ask them, but he’d already been ridiculed at the bank and he couldn’t handle another ordeal. He started his meal and drank a beer. Then he heard one guy say to the other:
“Under the weather? Drink some yerba mate and you’ll feel better.”
That’s what he should do—drinking mate would help him get back on his feet.
* * *
—
He was upset, angry, and confused: they spoke of armadillos, horses, and cats—he’d heard someone say, “Don’t let the cat out of the bag,” and also, “What a cash cow.” But where are all the armadillos? What about the cows and the horses? They’re nowhere in sight. He wasn’t furious—he was defeated, so defeated that he did something out of character: that night at the hotel he plopped himself down to watch television next to a deaf lady with a little cat. At first the lady smiled at him, which made him happy. At least someone acknowledged him, but then he realized the smile was plastered on her face permanently, hard to tell why. Turning back to the television he regained a sense of hope: the program was called “Rural Tourism.” It followed the lives of people who were preparing to host tourists: some women were cooking, another milked a cow, and one man—this was what made him want to go—was pumping a railroad handcar. The program host said, “You can ride on a handcar if you’d like.” And then there was a clip of the handcar gliding along the tracks. That’s when Goran yelled enthusiastically: “Piriviridam!” (which is the word for handcar in Dutch). The deaf lady heard and Goran felt she approved. The cat seemed to agree, too. The program host said, “You can ride a horse, milk a cow, and watch otters groom themselves.” Goran thought, That’s where all the animals are! I want to go there. Everything will make sense once I get there. Then, without realizing the irony, he blurted out: “The heart of Argentina—once I get there, I’ll make sure they let every single one of those poor cats out of the bag.”
When he got to Iramain—that’s what the town was called—it was even better than he’d imagined. The train station was straight out of a children’s book, there was a red sign stamped with the town’s name. On one side of the station there were houses, and on the other, green pastures as far as the eye could see. It was as if the houses were lined up on the shore of a vast sea. And in the fields, clustered into groups as if gathering for a country festival, there were little cows under a bright blue sky and wispy clouds of cotton. But the cows weren’t just out in the fields. Back across the tracks, there were cows in the yards too, since there was so much space between the houses. He stopped to look at some cows in front of one house, and a villager told him:
“That’s Gabriela over there, and this is Estela. Gabriela’s a good girl, but Estela can be pig-headed.”
“Pig-headed? Pig-headed? What do you mean?” Goran said in alarm. Again, he was missing something. How could a cow have a pig’s head?
“You’re not from around here, I can tell by your accent.”
“No, I’m from the Netherlands.”
“From where?”
He had a map in his pack, but he wasn’t about to take it out now, before he’d gotten settled. So, pointing beyond the field, he said:
“It’s that way.”
“Ah,” said the villager. “I never met anyone from present-day Uropa. We’ve got some of your kinsfolk here, but from way back.”
“Oh. What do you mean?”
“I mean people who came over a long time ago, too long ago to count. My wife’s grandmother came from Uropa as did her mother, my late mother-in-law. She knew the whole story, but my wife doesn’t remember any of the details.”
And Goran understood almost everything the villager said!
“What does mañera mean?” asked Goran.
A skittish animal. They’re just like Christians: some you can count on, while others are mañeros.”
After that conversation, Goran went to look at two sheep in another yard. They were eating grass and the lawn was as trim as if it had just been mown. On the dirt road there were three southern lapwing chicks, as big as pigeons. A woman walked up to him and asked:
“Would you like a mate?”
“Yes,” said Goran, “because in bad weather a little mate helps you feel better.”
“Don’t you know it,” said the woman and handed him a yerba mate gourd that was as big as a pumpkin. Goran made a strange face because it was the first time he’d tried yerba mate, and the woman said:
“You have to get used to it—it’s bitter, but it always does the trick.”
“So it’s not pig-headed?” said Goran.
The woman laughed, they laughed together. She said:
“Will you be staying at Susana’s place?”
He didn’t know where Susana’s place was, he thought it might be far, but it was right down the street. There was a row of houses that were sturdy but old, and across the street was the station with its toy sign. The woman who walked him to Susana’s wanted him to take off his backpack so she could help him, but he refused. He guessed women in Iramain were used to carrying large bundles. Susana herself was standing in the doorway and she waved him in. He asked her:
“Madam, may I have the key to my room?”
“No,” said Susana. “We don’t use keys here. Just make yourself at home.”
“Madam, would you like to see my passport?”
“No, m’dear. No need for that.”
Susana already knew that he came from Uropa and carried around a bag that weighed something close to a hundred pounds.
* * *
—
He set down his pack in the middle of the room. It looked out of place. The room looked like it belonged to a family member who’d gone on a trip but might move back any time. On the nightstand there was a Bible, although luckily for him the print was too small, thus releasing him from the obligation to read it. Still, there it was, just in case…And the window, which looked out onto a garden, was plastered in stickers. One of them said: “Udder cream for cows.” Another depicted a field of wheat. The lowing of a young cow rang so clearly from outside, it felt like the cow was calling to him in particular. Next to another bed there was a homemade cradle where they ke
pt sheets and tablecloths. Why was the window so low? A person—or a sheep—could walk right up at any time to converse with him as he lay in bed. On the wall there was a cupboard made with the shell of an old television set and next to it a dark wardrobe that looked like it had been brought over by the Uropeans from back in the day. But why was he getting sidetracked by the room’s décor? He wanted to explore every nook and cranny of the town, through and through. He removed a smaller bag from the big pack and set off. The town was three blocks long and three blocks wide. It was surrounded by fields on all sides. As soon as he stepped outside, as if sensing his intentions, Miss Betty from next door asked him:
“I can go with you if you’d like, so you don’t get lost.”
“Oh, no thanks,” he said.
As if Goran Shikendanz, of all people, was going to get lost in that speck of a town—he who’d been to London, India, and Timbuktu. Which way should I go? he wondered. First he imagined exploring the town systematically, walking up and down each block, but then he decided: I’m just going to go wherever my feet take me. His feet led him straight to the square. It wouldn’t have mattered which path he’d taken because they all led straight to the square. The square recalled some not-so-distant time when the cattle would have congregated right there. In fact, there was a sheep grazing next to the statue of San Martín. The statue was somewhat obscured behind the bulky mass of the sheep and two dogs lying there absolutely still, in such contrast to urban dogs, who want to get their paws on everything they see and smell. It was as if these dogs had seen and smelled everything they needed. There was also a monument to the fallen soldiers of the Malvinas War, with a collective mask to represent them all; it looked like a Mycenaean mask. At the other end of the square a man was teaching a boy around the age of four to ride a horse; from the park bench where Goran sat he could hear the lesson perfectly. No one would ever make a point of visiting this square—get dressed, take some money along, elect to move from inside to outside. In fact, he discovered there wasn’t much difference between inside and outside. It was more about shade and sunlight. For example, the house where he was staying and the houses along his street—all at least a hundred years old—didn’t have front windows. It was to keep the sunlight from pouring in. Once you stepped inside, darkness ruled. The rooms were like trees lending their shade. When he stood up and started walking around town he noticed there was an Iramain style for decorating gardens: each rosebush had been planted in a tire, like a whitewashed pot. In one garden there were so many roses that it looked like a lifesaving contest. And farther out, on the edge of the countryside, they’d laid down stones around the base of a large tree, and next to it was a huge tire with firewood inside. Indeed, Iramain had its own unique style. As he listened to a bird that sounded as if it had the hiccups, he noticed a small windmill decoration and he brightened: a windmill, like the ones in Holland, and all those automobile tires (he liked circular things). As the day carried on he saw people coming to town from the countryside—only a few, but their silhouettes came into view so clearly that he could watch them approach from afar. Where were their houses? Everything was in plain sight; and when he went back to his room and looked at his big pack, squat in the middle of the floor, he thought, It looks like an animal. And for the first time he didn’t open the pack to check that everything was there, or to make sure the things he’d need next were on top, or to look up the time zones. He knew everything was in the right place. And as he drifted off to sleep he thought, After all, what’s so great about bags? They’re just filled with stuff. Then he took a long nap.