by Cesar Aira
The effort of telling the story had left Clarke drained, quivering. On this occasion, his exhaustion was an aesthetic reflex, bearing in mind that this was the state in which his protagonist — that is, he himself — constantly found himself in the narration. Sweat was pouring down his face and neck, making him shudder in the hot morning. Carlos was taken aback: proof of which was that he was speechless. As Clarke gradually recovered, he understood his companion’s silence: there was no need to say a single word more about love, madness, or death. All that remained was destiny, but that was too vast, was akin in a way to the continuum. He also understood a persistent feeling that had been with him all through his tale, a slight unease he had been unable to place. Before he had begun the story, or what had been left of it to tell, he had been talking about interruptions. That was not right, it was incorrect. Interruptions did not exist. He would have explained this to Carlos, but he had no wish to interrupt his thoughts, which must have been edifying.
At midday they crossed a charming stream. Gauna surprised them by telling them it was the same one they had spent the night beside, which bent round like a bow. It might have been true, or not. They halted for lunch in the shade of its trees.
“Tell me something, Gauna,” Clarke said once they had finished eating, “how can you be sure we’ll meet up with the Widow? It’s obvious that she’s ahead of us, by however little. Isn’t it possible that she’s already finished what she had to do in the Sierra, and has left? All we would find then are cold ashes.”
“It so happens that tomorrow, the ninth of March, is an important date in our family. It’s my grandfather’s birthday (he would be a hundred, if he were still alive); it’s my mother’s birthday, and it’s mine too.”
“What an incredible coincidence.”
Carlos had become excited. “So tomorrow is your birthday, Gauna! You should have told us sooner. I don’t think there’s time for us to get you a present now.”
There was no reply.
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the hills, which of course when seen close up were neither blue nor a wavy line on the horizon. They were broken terrain which the horses found hard going. The three men entered them almost at random. Clarke had vaguely hoped the famous pierced crag of the Ventana would present itself to his eyes straight away, but it was obviously not going to be that easy. The hills covered a wide area, with hundreds of peaks forming a real labyrinth. A creek — or rather, a river, because it must have been about a hundred yards wide — forced them to change direction; there was no point going to the trouble of swimming across it if they were not sure that their goal lay on the far side. They had been climbing the whole time, and were now breathing a different air, which affected their nervous systems and made them light-headed. There was not a single tree in sight. The silence was complete. A few birds flew out from the mountains and glided for a while without a sound. Standing out against the sky on high slopes beyond a range of low hills, they saw an endless herd of deer, rendered mute by distance. The landscape was reminiscent of a cardboard cutout, but on a huge scale, which gave the impression they were the ones who had become miniatures. The sun had been hidden as soon as they entered the hills, and must by now be falling below the horizon line, because the light took on first a bluish and then a gray tinge, while the odd wisp of lilac-colored cloud floated peacefully across the heavens. Gauna was looking round with as much curiosity as the other two: for him, as for them, this was the first time he had visited the hills. All three of them were equally lost. Clarke was thinking it would be only too absurd for the appointed day to come and go, without them being able to find the famous Ventana peak. Carlos must have been thinking the same, but made no comment, because in this more difficult terrain the three were riding alongside each other, and Gauna hardly seemed in a good mood. It was odd he had not insisted on more precise information. Had he imagined that the pierced peak would be visible from all sides? Clarke told himself that perhaps it was even hidden from the foot of the mountain itself; it could be any one of the crags around them. Then again, it might be none of them; the hills seemed to stretch on for ever. For the time being, it was already night, and since it was not a good idea to continue on this treacherous terrain if they could not see properly, they made camp in a hollow surrounded on almost every side by steep, conical peaks. The day had been a tiring one; this last stage had prolonged it even more than usual, until it was completely dark, and since they would have to be up at dawn if they were to have any chance of finding what they were looking for, they ate a perfunctory supper, saying little more than was necessary to show they were not ill-disposed to each other; then they slept.
13: Happy Families
Clarke was awakened by Gauna’s hand tugging at his shoulder. It was some unearthly hour in the middle of the night. His body clock told him he had slept several hours. He needed several more, no doubt, but even so he was sufficiently lucid to think that Gauna must have had a good reason for waking him. He sat up and looked around. Although it was nighttime, it was very bright: there was a full moon. The gaucho did not seem to want to speak. Everything was still and quiet, and the moonlight produced a strange effect on the contours of this mountain landscape . . . one that was perhaps too strange, he realized a few seconds later. He wondered what could be causing it. The light was not uniform: some areas were very bright, others were in darkness, then further on there were bright patches again. As he transferred his gaze from the distant peaks to the spot were they were camped, he noted that they were in the center of an irregular circle of whiteness. This was the “reflection effect” that a heavenly body like the moon was not supposed to produce. Clarke looked again at the light, and what he saw was so inexplicable that he sat for over half a minute in complete stupefaction. The moon was shining through the far side of a tall conical mountain less than half a mile away. But that was impossible. He glanced at Gauna, who was standing beside him (he was still sitting on his bedroll, twisting round) and staring at the same spot. An association of ideas helped Clarke clear his mind. When he looked up again at the yellow face of the moon, he had already understood what was happening: by a great stroke of luck, they were seeing it through the Ventana peak. Even while he was staring thus at the moon in astonishment, it moved on, and the circle of light on the ground moved with it, leaving them at its dark rim. The Ventana, had found them, rather than them finding it.
“I’m going up there now,” Gauna said, still staring at the mountain.
“You mean you’re going to climb it?”
“I want to be at the top at dawn.”
“Won’t it be dangerous in the dark?”
“That face over there,” Gauna said, pointing to the left, “looks possible, and in a few minutes the moon should be shining directly onto it.”
“All right,” said Clarke, making up his mind. “Let’s wake
Carlos.”
“You mean you’re coming too?”
Clarke had considered this understood from the beginning. “If we’ve come this far . . .” was all he said. He put his boots on and went to wake Carlos. He explained the discovery they had made. The moon was no longer shining through the pierced mountain but to one side of it, so the youngster could not verify for himself what he was being told. He expressed his doubts. Couldn’t it have been a hallucination, what the English called “wishful thinking”? They assured him it wasn’t.
They set off at once, pausing only for Clarke to grab his shotgun and Gauna to pick up a folded piece of paper that was proof of his identity. There was something frankly pathetic in his gesture. To climb a mountain in the middle of the night just to claim a fortune was taking greed a little too far. They left the horses where they were: they had no reason to stray, unless attacked by a puma, and there was nothing they could do about that. Their excitement, the time of night, and the lack of baggage lent wings to their feet. Before they were aware of it they were climbing the mountain, something their lungs soon became aware of. The animal lif
e on the slopes was incredible: tiny owls, gophers, foxes, bats, armadillos started up in front of them at nearly every step. It was a paradise for small game; Clarke’s shotgun was scorching his hands, because he had decided to respect Gauna’s suggestion that they make as little noise as possible, not so much because he shared the gaucho’s belief that the Widow’s men were nearby, but more to humor him. The obliging moon lit up every clump of grass. When they glanced up, the mountainside looked daunting. It seemed it would take them a lifetime or more to reach the top. But when they looked down, they were surprised at how far they had already climbed. They could feel the mountain beneath their feet, the incomparable sensation of bulk that contrasted so sharply with their abstract progress across the flat plains. They said nothing, because breathing itself was difficult enough.
The moon moved further off and appeared to climb in the sky. It picked them out. They saw themselves as almost infinitely tiny, but at the same time gigantic as they scaled the hidden microlandscapes of the mountain. The moonlight bounced off the solid objects, which remained in darkness. Everything was duality. Even the high and low. Then all of a sudden they were very high up. They had been climbing without respite for three or four hours. The moon was still in the sky, a little smaller perhaps, and with a different shape, as though they were seeing it from the side; the same was true of the Milky Way. As for the shape of the mountain itself, by now it was all the same to them whatever it was. Clarke remembered that from down below it had seemed to him to be almost perfectly conical, with a broad base — like an Egyptian pyramid. From the heights, it was nothing more than a monstrously uneven piece of ground. Possibly when they reached the summit they would be able to appreciate its geometrical perspective more, though he doubted it. And anyway, night transformed everything. Being younger and lighter, Carlos was slightly ahead of the other two, whose legs were already heavy as lead. Gauna brought up the rear, panting as he climbed. All at once, they were surprised by a change in the surrounding darkness. This was because the moon had disappeared behind a mountain in the middle distance; which was further proof of how distorted their appreciation of everything was, as only a moment before it had seemed to be overhead, and probably had been. Now its light shone round the sides of the mountain, which gave off a bright clarity like a candle. Still, they found it harder to see where they were treading.
They were not able to worry about this for long, because several human shadows suddenly leapt out at them and in a flash had pinioned them to the ground. Gauna maintained his proud silence, but the other two let out shouts of rage. All three tried to resist, but in vain. The Indians tied their hands behind their backs, with sturdy leather thongs, bound their feet, then sheathed the daggers they had been waving menacingly at their throats. When their assailants had finished tying the three men up, they sat down to get their breath back, passed round a bottle of some kind of firewater whose smell filled the air, and began to talk. Their victims listened closely.
“Now,” one of them said, “we’re going to have to carry them.”
“Why’s that?” another one asked, as if it was not obvious.
“Because we tied their feet, that’s why.”
“You’re right,” a third or fourth person said, apparently suddenly catching onto something he could never have worked out for himself.
Another Indian, most probably the one whose idea it had been in the first place, came to the defense of tying their feet up: “First, it stops them running off. We wouldn’t be sitting here so relaxed now, passing round the bottle, if their feet were free and we had to keep an eye on them all the time. Second, they could kick you. . . .”
“Once, a fellow I’d tied the feet of kneed me, so it’s no great guarantee.”
“That’s really weird, it could only happen to you. . . .”
“No, hang on a minute. . . .”
The argument became more personal. But it did not offer any clues as to who these Indians might be. They spoke a mishmash of the region’s languages; Clarke had taken it for granted they were the Widow’s men. Until the moon emerged from the side of the mountain in the distance, they were nothing more than confused silhouettes. They were ordinary-looking savages, wearing a thick coating of grease. As soon as the moonlight returned, the Indians stood up, removed the thongs from their captives’ feet (so in fact they had simply hobbled them like troublesome horses while they had a rest) and motioned them to climb in front of them. There were only four Indians, which would have been a cause for shame, had the three white men not had the excuse of being caught unaware. Their fears had proved correct: they had been ambushed. But there was one good thing about this mishap: their assailants would take them where they wanted to go, to see the Widow, and she might even be kind enough to have their hands untied, in which case the whole experience would have cost them nothing. They continued to climb for some time, following a diagonal path they would never have discovered for themselves, at least at night. They said nothing to each other, although they had the opportunity. The situation did not seem particularly threatening. Their captors seemed quite fierce, but they could hardly be otherwise; their role demanded it. At one especially steep point, the Indians came to a halt. Two of them stayed to look after the prisoners, while the other two loped off, triumphantly returning a few minutes later with a third individual. He peered at the faces of the three new arrivals, particularly Clarke’s, and eventually said: