Land of Smoke

by Sara Gallardo

  ‘That’s him, that’s him, that’s him, that’s him.’

  Then many creatures from the marshland found ways to come look at the Whirlwind of the Night, the one who had kept them in terror for so many hours. Each concealed himself in his own way to observe him, with flights that feigned indifference and silly wingbeats.

  That day word began to spread on the pampas of someone arrived for some purpose. A stallion white as a heron with a red back.

  The sun came out. Its gaze moved over everything without obstacle, as a billiard ball might roll along a runner, until it hit White Glory’s chest, which was as solid as the full moon when it rises over the Río de la Plata. Just like the moon, the chest of White Glory was set aflame with the gaze of the sun almost touching the earth.

  The whole world greeted that gaze.

  A breeze seemed to lift up to receive it.

  Just like when a young officer gallops alongside a returning hero, and the hoofbeats of both horses mingle with one another, for a moment, White Glory thought the gaze of the sun was what bent the grasses, and breeze was what gave light to the world.

  He smelled the grasses, and ate without worrying about their toughness.

  He was put to the test. Some bad weed, doubtless. His legs gave way. He resisted with a death rattle, dragging himself to the water where he drank all he could. His blanket grew wet at the edges and was soon soaked. After shivering through the night, the sun dried him. Dew seeped into him at dawn. When he fell, he saw a life he hadn’t expected: snakes rushing through the grass, ants, the little bird that had spoken to him the previous day dying in the mouth of a horned frog.

  Later he stretched out. Legs stiff, belly enormous, mane full of earth, eyes bulging, he listened to the wing-beats of the grey-brown birds and their commentaries, which he didn’t understand, but knew referred to him.

  He turned dark with sweat. He whinnied softly.

  Oh, all the better Dick couldn’t see him.

  Time passed, a great deal of time. One day he sat up without standing, and the sun seemed good to him.

  More time passed, and then he felt hungry. He ate, and how he ate.

  The grass brimming with seeds was responsible for his great improvement, his force and splendour.

  Over the green plain he went, alone, running just to run, kicking just to kick, until he tired of that place and chose to follow the course of the wind.

  He followed that path. When he arrived at a river he saw beings of his species on the other side. Mares. Such a scent. Bellowing, he ran towards and drew back from the water several times. He found a place where he could cross over. It was twilight and when he emerged, he shook off the briny water.

  The next day was his first battle.

  A black stallion came out of the thicket, sweeping along a tail stiff with caltrop. It came at him, bellowing.

  In the depths of his memory White Glory found ways to bite, kick and paw, giving and receiving blows. The two reared up on their two legs screaming, tails arching like banners.

  The other horse tripped on his own mane.

  He died from that, broken by the blows. He was old and fierce. Dying, he saw the scarlet-caparisoned white one and felt him to be a worthy successor.

  All his mares went to White Glory, animals that had no experience of men, girths or bits. From them and for them he learned everything a stud should know. Ponds, grasses, shadows, dangers.

  People on horseback, reeking of colt flesh, pursued him in an immense chase. They lit blazing walls of fire.

  By then his blanket had fallen apart.

  He was the only who got away, for no other ran like him. No one could jump as high or as far. He leapt over the fiery fence. Rumour spread that there was a horse from heaven roaming free.

  Yes, he went about free. But once again he was alone. How alone, and how free.

  His battle against the pack of starving dogs is spoken about often. He opened a circle with his kicks, then fled, jumping over them and dashing away.

  He left behind everything that can be seen. Or even dreamed. He ran until he came up against water. He turned to the south.

  Hidden in a stretch of woodland, he watched a multitude of horses advance, their manes so long they reached the ground. As the herd surged forward, he grew agitated, doing turns, whickering, holding back his neighs. He’d learned prudence. He watched, smelt them as they went by. Clouds of dust followed, then nothing.

  White Glory’s third battle was not forced upon him.

  Out of love for a young sorrel he attacked a bay with a black mane, which did not fight to the death but ran away, bleeding. The sorrel and all those belonging to the bay went to White Glory. If Dick could see, how happy he’d be.

  He’d have been happy watching him lead his pack to the unassailable region.

  Past marshlands, muds, swamps. Leaving deaths. Erasing all traces.

  This is how, when the tides of wild horses were extinguished by men, one group persisted. Every generation had a new chief. But they always went south, and were always led by a stallion. White.

  It will be a century now.

  I’ve seen them from far off, passing the lake of Urrelavquén. They run over the salty lands, like a cloud. One dapple horse runs in front them all, glorious as glory.

  THE RACE OF CHAPADMALAL

  DO YOU KNOW the word Chapadmalal? Literally, it means ‘marshy corral’. Its real meaning is a concentration of beauty. A house, a park. And above all, horses.

  The best horses go afterwards to the cemetery. There they sleep, and turn into Chapadmalal.

  A poet sang of them. No better way of telling the truth.

  I only want to remind you that every moonless midnight a race is arranged there. They say only those with a pure soul get to see it.

  What they feel is a trembling in the night, a coming and going of hooves. Once again, the fragrance of horse sweat.

  Leaving behind the roots in which they are wrapped, the great runners phosphoresce. They go in a whirlwind, a stampede with no stamping, a rush. They wear the afternoon’s laurels. The sea isn’t far. That much is known.

  Oh, to have a pure heart! To be able to see the race of the horses of Chapadmalal!

  THAT ONE

  OF ALL THE THINGS I was told about that land, that is to say, the space that runs from Gándara to Guerrero, I’d have given anything to see one.

  You had to approach in the very early morning, all the better if it was foggy. Then, wait until daybreak. It was terribly damp.

  After that the whiteness appeared. The mane on a powerful swanlike neck. The wide chest and bluish muzzle, the virile and fleshless legs. He moved his head, and the mane, like a curtain, fell over one eye, only to rise again and reveal it, shiny as a jewel.

  It was the horse that sings.

  It sang, yes. Some have said so, those who were lucky.

  It sang.

  And how, with that voice and that sound.

  As I said already, I’d give anything to have seen it. Seen and heard it.

  But those were other times, different from now.

  DAGGERS

  BYWORD

  THE WORLD IS MY ENEMY.

  I started by selling my parents’ cutlery. I would have sold their hearts that day.

  Things have an unfortunate tendency to escalate from a little to a lot. I wish they went from a lot to even more. That’s why I’ll leave out the dullness of stolen cars, the races over rooftops and ledges. The dabbling of a rookie is never interesting.

  As an ex-law student, I amused myself by winning laughably short sentences. A little jail can’t hurt a man, says a tango. Of course not. It won me friendships.

  The best, which can never be expressed, came later. There were the groups I led, and my women. The first, the faithful one, went crazy trying to put up with the constant fear.

  Every danger will nourish me forever. And I’ve been nourished…

  Border crossings, diamonds. When there was a fuel shortage in Brazil, I fle
w with tanks of petrol that spilled over the floor. Do you know what it’s like to fly on a bomb?

  Oh world, enemy of mine.

  Now is the hour I’ve always been waiting for, the true one. Like a hurricane the machine guns, the glass and faces exploding in front of me, leaving a dead partner on each side. The world is my enemy, I’m screaming now, riddled with bullets. Undone, elated at last, serene.

  NEMESIS

  THE TRUTH IS THAT I didn’t cry for my husband. Thirty years of discord. Or rather: ten of discord, and twenty of hate. That’s a yoke if there ever was one.

  I inherited from him. I had always wanted assets of my own. I invested, bought land – I know how to accept good advice; I took out money in loans.

  I became happy, even started to notice colours in the sky.

  When I moved into my new house, two rooms with carpets and vases overlooking a park, I drank champagne alone and laughed.

  Every Friday I invited friends over for bridge. Old married couples and a pederast to round it out.

  One Monday afternoon the servant left. She’d been useless and rheumatic and was going to check into a hospital. A relief.

  I asked for help from the doorman, who sent his son.

  I don’t know how it happened.

  I’ve started to think about stories I never believed. About Cupid, with his arrows and blindfold.

  He came in my house and looked at me, and for a minute my tongue didn’t respond.

  I’d read about that happening in novels, but not to me!

  I find myself thinking of more mystical things too, sorcerers and gods. I’ve grown sick with love.

  Ten days ago I would have laughed listening to this story.

  He knows what afflicts me, but isn’t compassionate. Just the opposite; he hardly conceals his contempt.

  He enjoys – like me – money. He builds a little house in a suburb for his girlfriend.

  Like me, I said? Trembling, I crawl to his feet, bring my hand to his knees. I give him my money.

  I still invite people over for bridge, although now I can’t tell the faces of my grandchildren apart. Every afternoon I dress the way I believe I used to, and make visits where I talk about films, politics, fashion.

  I return at night, without looking at myself in the mirror of the elevator, burning.

  Standing in the kitchen, there he is, indifferent. I run to find him.

  What was the world?

  RED

  ‘GET THE KILLER!’ I shouted.

  We were a vortex, and the police could do nothing to stop us.

  We shouted. Indeed, there was something to shout about.

  Those bodies, those women and children stabbed to death. Why describe the floor?

  Ropes had been twisted from sheets.

  Get the killer!

  It all was reason enough for us to surround the house like we did, in a growing surge. The police could do nothing to stop us.

  More than anything, it was the delight the killer had taken in his work that made us shout. His hunger for crime in that room; also the way he had, still unsatisfied, arranged those poor limbs.

  Get the killer!

  A hurricane. We saw red.

  Get the killer!

  Red.

  Red on my hands, which I kept hidden as I shouted.

  Red as the steel in my pocket.

  Get the killer!

  PALERMO

  I SHOULD HAVE STRANGLED my wife last night between eleven and one. Or killed them at the hour of the siesta, when no one is thinking of surprises. I should have told her I knew, because I did know.

  I should have killed her last night. Strangled her, because my hands are strong. With kicks, for I know about kicks. I should have told her, then killed her. She had just put on a new necklace. She ran to the telephone without even looking at me.

  I did not kill her, and I’ll never be the same. I will start to lose.

  I did not kill her because of today. Of this afternoon. This race.

  Me, a jockey, a rider drunk on horses. Me, victorious; me, in the rapture of the wind. Calculation, heel, crop, inside the avalanche, cold and demented and coming out in front.

  Me, justly famous.

  What else?

  It matters not.

  EVEN

  IN THE BAR they consult me, the calmest of men. It’s true that I’m wise. Squatting at my bootblack’s box, I watch the people go by. Or I polish. I know the shoes of my regular customers.

  ‘I’m even with life,’ I say, and they admire me.

  I’m even, it’s true.

  To my son – my only child – I gave a name I’d thought about. The first one was his grandfather’s name, the second, my own, the third one, the truth, for he was indeed desired. Carlos Fidel Deseado. Last name, González.

  I managed to foot the bill for his studies, primary, secondary, medical school. He got his degree when he was twenty-two, and we celebrated with a roast. Not a single neighbour missed it.

  That night a tram killed him.

  ‘Twenty-two,’ I said.

  It’s taken me thirty years to take revenge. Poison. One by one, until reaching twenty-two. Who’d suspect me? My sister’s granddaughter completed the count.

  I’m even with life, it’s true. Calm, I watch the people pass. The waiters consult me. I am wise. I give advice with a cold heart.

  ERIC GUNNARDSEN

  For Gui

  A YOUNG MAN was thrown out of a house surrounded by a fence. It was in Italy, by a lake. The young man left at daybreak, without a glance at the statues or a goodbye to the trees. The gate of the fence closed with a double resonance: the slide of the bolts, and the twin spears vibrating as they met.

  In the city of Buenos Aires, there’s a street where the wind blows and the air moves even on the calmest afternoons. One evening it flapped the coat of a woman walking up that steep street, looking for a church. When she saw it she felt relief. Its architecture calmed her, in the same way it’s calming to hear one’s native language spoken in an unknown region.

  The church rested a step back, like a parishioner who presses her elbows to her body so as not to brush against the other devout. Two short iron railings separate the entrance from the street. This was the Dansk Kirke, the Danish church. It differed as much from neighbouring houses as the arriving woman, collar tight against her throat, differed from those leaning on the doorframes watching her pass.

  The pastor, with his dry mouth and shiny forehead, was as familiar to her as the church.

  She’d come to ask about a parishioner. When the pastor told her he didn’t know him, she seemed entirely disconcerted. To console her, he said he’d ask his wife, though he knew his wife to be almost completely ignorant about most things.

  Face pressed against the windowpane, she looked at the pavement in the evening. She saw how some women had made a mountain of trash in front of the church, and how this was lit on fire. She thought she saw an attack take place and turned to look for the pastor, but when she didn’t find him, she went on looking. The wind swept away the smoke, carrying off scraps without anyone thinking of running after them. She saw the indifference of everything and asked herself what territory she’d arrived at, in search of her brother.

  Upstairs, the pastor’s wife was flipping through magazines from her homeland, with their pictures of brides and dated advertisements. The pastor came and held out the name of his visitor in handwriting like fly’s feet. He had written it to give an impression of solicitude, also to allow the visiting lady time to compose herself. His wife asked if it wasn’t the name of a physicist and astronomer, a nobleman decorated by the throne; he had been ambassador in Rome, where he had died and been buried according to his wishes in the city’s non-Catholic cemetery. The pastor went silent. Then he forced her to arrange her hair and go downstairs.

  When she entered the office, the pastor’s wife noticed something neither her husband nor the women outside had noticed: the newcomer’s beauty.

  Thi
s beauty belonged to the genre of pearls, a beauty that could only be perceived with close examination, if it weren’t for the grace of movement which often goes with it. Her delicacy of features might have been considered negligible had other tones composed it. But if one can use the word grey to describe the smoky hues of oyster, and plush to describe emerging antlers and lichen, one might also say there are faces modelled in grey, and that their loveliest notes are the bags under the eyes, a shadow sometimes extending to the eyelids. In such hazy facial landscapes, the eyes are often of an intense sky blue. Turquoise, almost. They also have an expression of lordly dereliction. Children like this often give forth a radiance which captivates some, and also makes their mothers wistful, fearful they will be snatched early from life. When age or some other reason softens this touch, the mothers put their fears to rest. The pastor’s wife noted all this in a flash.

  Behind the altar of the Danish church there are three stained-glass windows: Christ at the well with the Samaritan woman, Saint Peter sinking in the waters and, in the largest at the centre, the multiplication of loaves and fishes. These seem to propose a charade. Seated in one of the pews, which do not allow kneeling, surrounded by a black flock of books that were familiar to unknown hands, the woman who had just arrived tried to resolve it. She did.

  Passing in front of the pastor and his wife without seeing them, she went out into the wind of the night. At the corner she found her brother.

  He made her enter an inn full of sailors and climb a staircase. In a room with a bed and trunk, there was a table with cheese, a knife, a bottle of spirits.

  They sat in two chairs. He filled a glass halfway, cut a piece of cheese. They didn’t dare look at one another.

  He put the piece of cheese on a paper and pushed it towards her. She couldn’t eat, just as she couldn’t talk. He stopped, took her by the back of the neck, pushed the cheese between her teeth, and then the glass, forcing her to swallow. The spirits trickled down her coat. Like a drowning victim just before the waters close over her head, she looked at his cursing mouth. She wondered if its curves, which had once dazzled with their grace, could ever return. She wanted to resurrect the old outline. Like a dog that digs, trying to retrieve a prey, she started covering it with kisses.