In the Distance

by Hernan Diaz

  Their first patient died. Increasingly disfigured by infection, an acute inflammation of his neck and head had strangled him to death. After closing the man’s eyes, the naturalist looked around the camp and then at his disciple with visible concern.

  “I hope they understand we did our best,” he muttered.

  The reaction to the young man’s death was surprising, but not because his friends and family were angered by the outcome of the treatment. There was no rage; there were no plaintive cries; there were not even tears. Håkan was astounded to see that their response was remarkably similar to how people mourned in Sweden. He recalled his youngest brother’s death clearly. His parents and the few distant neighbors attending the funeral had displayed the same austere grief as the people now walking around this dead young man, pretending not to see him. Their stern faces seemed to imply that their sorrow transcended the realm of known feelings and, therefore, that familiar expressions of pain were no longer of any use. Rather than being clouded with tears, their eyes were hardened in defiance, and their quiet anger kept them from looking at each other. The short-haired man undressed the corpse. Those who happened to be around shared whatever suited them. The body was put on a canvas stretcher and carried out into the sunset. No funeral procession—only the short-haired man and his companion carrying the stretcher. Those who stayed behind seemed to have forgotten the dead man as soon as he was taken away. They returned to their chores, chatting casually. Their eyes had softened.

  After making sure his patients could be left unsupervised for a few moments, Lorimer set out to follow the stretcher-bearers, keeping a respectful distance. Håkan joined him. They walked for about three miles through the stubborn desert. Dust. Sagebrush. Sky. Every now and again, the rumor of the stretcher-bearers’ conversation. The sun set without pomp—it just got dark. The pewter moonlight was little more than a scent in the night. Suddenly, in a spot that resembled any other, the stretcher-bearers stopped, unloaded the body, rolled up the stretcher, and, without ceremony of any kind, turned around and walked away. They stopped when they reached Lorimer and Håkan and offered them some charqui and glazed cactus pulp, the first sweet the travelers had tasted in months. After the long process of chewing their rubbery victuals, they stared at each other, as if hoping someone would start a conversation. The short-haired man looked up at the waning moon. Håkan and Lorimer looked up as well. The man with the rolled-up stretcher did not. The short-haired man said something that Håkan would have translated as “all right, then,” and started walking back to the encampment, followed by his companion. Lorimer gave Håkan a nod, and they walked over to the corpse. Håkan had never seen anything as dead as that mutilated body abandoned between the night and the desert. Corrupting, there, forsaken, becoming, already, nothing.

  “And thy corpse shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall frighten them away—to think that this is one of God’s most terrible curses. But consider it carefully. No sepulchre. No cremation. No obsequies. Becoming meat for someone else’s teeth,” said Lorimer with some of his past passion. “Can you imagine? Can you imagine what a relief? Will we ever dare to look at a body without the shroud of superstition, naked, like it truly is? Matter, and nothing more. Preoccupied with the perpetuity of our departed souls, we have forgotten that, on the contrary, it is our carcasses and our flesh that make us immortal. I am fairly confident they didn’t bury him so that his transmigration into bird and beast would be swifter. Never mind memorials, relics, mausoleums, and other vain preservations from corruption and oblivion. What greater tribute than to be feasted upon by one’s fellow creatures? What monument could be nobler than the breathing tomb of a coyote or the soaring urn of a vulture? What preservation more dependable? What resurrection more literal? This is true religion—knowing there is a bond among all living things. Having understood this, there is nothing to mourn, because even though nothing can ever be retained, nothing is ever lost. Can you imagine?” Lorimer asked again. “The relief. The freedom.”

  Four more people died over the next few days, and each of them was ferried out into the desert at dusk.

  The survivors healed. The never-ending lullaby stopped. Even if mangled and mutilated, all of the convalescents were conscious, and if they were in great pain, they were strong enough to conceal it. Among the maimed was the man who had tried to knife Lorimer. From his ankle, that vortex of bone and tendons and flesh, the infection had crept up his calf, and his leg had been amputated at the knee. As soon as he regained some of his vigor, he called Lorimer to his side. With great difficulty and a sour grimace of pain, he sat up. After catching his breath, he delivered a grave speech, brief but heartfelt. When he had finished, he took a leather tote bag and poured out its contents. On his palms were about two dozen teeth, perfectly extracted from the root, some grayed, some yellowed, all dull and gigantic. One of them was as long as the entire palm of his hand.

  “Terrible lizards,” said Lorimer with abstracted fascination. “Extinct reptiles. Dragon-like creatures blotted out of existence, vanished from the surface of the earth shortly after the dawn of time.”

  Some of the teeth were broken or jagged, but the man made sure to point out that there were a few large ones in perfect condition. He looked at Lorimer and with a solemn word offered him his treasure. Lorimer declined. The man insisted with great vehemence. The scene was repeated a few times until the naturalist understood that rejecting the gift was not only a great offense but also detrimental to his patient’s health—the argument had consumed most of his strength. He took the teeth, and the man lay back down, physically and morally relieved. A woman next to him requested Lorimer’s attention and produced a pouch of her own. She had fewer teeth and only one, displayed with great pride, was unmarred. Once again, Lorimer, who had cured a bullet wound to her abdomen, was asked to accept the treasure. One by one, each of the patients called Lorimer and, with a short ceremonial speech, gave him a handful of dragon teeth. Nobody was as rich (in either quantity or quality) as the first man with the amputated leg. As he made his way down the improvised ward, Lorimer had to start putting the offerings into the bowl of his hat. That heap of ivory shards no longer looked like teeth but rather like some unrecorded mollusk or ammunition for a weapon yet to be invented.

  “What better form of currency?” Lorimer thought out loud as they walked back to the wagon. “Because they can’t be manufactured (these long-gone creatures can’t be bred), and because their stock is extremely limited, these teeth will never lose their value. Same principle behind gold or diamonds. But these are so much worthier. And they remind us of how all living beings, quite like goods, are valuable, precisely because they are interchangeable.” He looked through the dagger-like bones. “The perfect standard.”

  Life at the camp gradually went back to normal. The wounded were out of danger, and all tents and huts were in good repair. The reverence everyone had shown Lorimer and Håkan dissipated, and eventually the foreigners were simply ignored. The only exception to the general indifference was Antim, the amputee warrior—who had made an extraordinary recovery and become strong enough to ride his horse. He was fanatically devoted to Lorimer and assisted him in every possible way. They spent a great deal of time together, and the naturalist, with his accustomed ease, quickly learned the rudiments of Antim’s language.

  Håkan’s days were consumed, for the most part, by his eagerness to set out east. With each day, he felt the distance separating him from Linus increase. Additionally, since he had helped Lorimer with the wounded, he had developed a feeling of urgency entirely new to him. Up to that moment, his longing for his brother was intertwined and often confused with fear—he missed Linus, yes, but he also missed his protection. Now, however, Håkan did not fear for himself, but for his brother. He had the pressing sense that it was Linus who needed him; that he was the one who had to come to his older brother’s rescue (this concern, Håkan realized, had developed together with his medical skills)
. But Håkan knew the desert well enough to understand that he could not venture out without provisions and animals. He could only hope that his friend would decide to leave soon—and that he would be headed east. Finally, one afternoon, Lorimer told Håkan that it was time to move on.

  “I am going back to Saladillo. Antim has offered to help.”

  Håkan felt his blood thinning. He breathed in and looked around the plains for something to hold on to. Lorimer put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, my dear friend,” he said. “You will be on your way to New York on a horse with all the necessary supplies. Antim, who feels indebted to you as well, will give you one of his ponies, and I will furnish you with all you need for your journey.”

  “Please don’t go back to the flats.”

  “I must. I know you understand that.”

  Håkan could only look down.

  “When we left Saladillo, I thought the chance to find the primeval being had been forever lost. How would I ever be able to return to that desolate land? And now Antim tells me that he can take me back there, that he will help me get to the alkali ponds. How can I refuse? I need to find the creature—the only living thing that deserves the name of creature, because it was the only organism ever truly created. The rest of us are only increasingly distorted reproductions of that foundational organism. You understand what such discovery would mean. How can I refuse?”

  Håkan was given a pony and one of Lorimer’s burros supplied with necessaries. The naturalist advised him to make a detour before proceeding east. Heading north for about a fortnight, Håkan would eventually come to a river (which would be badly needed by then), and a few days later, a major emigrant trail—even if he strayed off course, it would be impossible to miss that line stretching from coast to coast. Then, all he had to do was travel against the current of settlers, and in a few months’ time, he would reach the Atlantic. Even if his provisions ran out and his animals fell ill, the emigrants would resupply him, and should he run out of money, he could work for a spell (although that would take him west for a while, those caravans were slow) and then resume his journey. The constant flow of pioneers made this the safest route. And, Lorimer added, smiling, the thick stream of emigrants going the opposite way with their wagons and oxen and furniture and horses and goods and women and livestock would even create the illusion that it was the world that moved while Håkan remained in place.

  The morning they parted, the naturalist gave his friend some gold, a wad of bills of different denominations, and a polished tin case.

  “The tools of your trade,” Lorimer said as Håkan opened the case. It contained vials, bottles, scalpels, needles, suture, clamps, saws, scissors, and other surgical instruments. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Lorimer added while searching his pockets. “You are a hopeless navigator. Do you have other talents? Unquestionably. But never mind telling left from right—I am shocked you know up from down! So here you are,” he said, presenting Håkan with a silver compass. “Blume, my teacher, gave it to me, and now it’s yours.”

  Their last moments together were spent over the dial, with Lorimer explaining to his friend how to find north.

  9.

  On the pony and next to his small burro, Håkan looked like a colossus. His attire increased the eccentricity of his figure. By the time he left the camp, he found it almost impossible to move without ripping his outgrown clothes. As a farewell gift, the women had mended and adjusted his shirt and trousers by keeping the original fabric and structure of the garments and grafting in additional material—offcuts from their tents, snippets from old quilts, patches they had woven whenever the scraps were too small. The result was a somewhat shapeless but cool and comfortable outfit whose provenance was impossible to determine—the European peasant, the Californian trapper, and the itinerant Indian had come together on an equal footing. The short-haired man, who turned out to be a consummate cobbler, repaired his cut-up shoes by stitching on two inches of leather to the soles and replacing most of the upper parts with the softest buckskin, which resulted in an odd sort of heeled moccasin. Finally, the children had decorated his felt hat with a colorful ribbon holding an iridescent black feather.

  Moving through the throbbing desert was like sinking into the state of trance immediately preceding sleep, where consciousness summons up all its remaining strength only to register the moment of its own dissolution. All that could be heard was the thin earth—rock pulverized through the seasons, bones milled by the elements, ashes scattered like a whisper over the plains—being further ground under the hooves. Soon, this sound became part of the silence. Håkan often cleared his throat to make sure he had not gone deaf. Above the hard shallowness of the desert, the unkind skies and the minuscule sun—a dense, sharp dot.

  And yet, despite its unbending sameness, the desert was now entirely different in Håkan’s eyes. From the compass warming in his pocket, invisible beams radiated in every cardinal direction. The plains were no longer blank but traversed by lines of certainty, as solid and unquestionable as avenues and thoroughfares. Knowing where he was going, having the assurance of finding the line of emigrants beyond the ring of the horizon, being able to build a fire and cook proper food on it, hearing the water lap in the vats with each of the burro’s steps, sensing the weight of his full purse in his pocket, feeling the desert was not such a foreign place anymore—all these things and impressions turned the plains into an actual territory that could be traversed and exited instead of a suffocating void from which everything, including space itself, had been drained.

  No change in Håkan’s circumstances, however, was as meaningful as owning a horse. On his horse, his very own horse, he had ascended to an order high above most men—nobody in Sweden, not even the most powerful person he had ever met, the estate manager who collected the fee from his father, owned a horse. That Pingo—for such, according to Antim, was the horse’s name—was one of the somewhat sickly ponies the plunderers had left behind, and that he had neither saddle nor bridle (instead, looped around his jaw, was a cord made from hide) was of no importance to him. He had become larger and freer. He felt, maybe for the first time in his life, proud. It was of no consequence that out in the desert nobody could witness his ennobled condition. His satisfaction required no spectators. Still, there was one pair of eyes he did miss. If Linus could only see him, riding through the grasslands on his bay roan—and with a burro in tow! Within his limited means, Håkan spoiled Pingo as much as possible. He always made sure he got enough rest and brushed him with a piece of rough canvas several times a day. He was willing to forgo his own share of water if he sensed the horse was too thirsty. In return, Pingo seldom gave Håkan any trouble. He was a docile animal, except when his gluttony got the better of him. Whenever the thickset pony spotted a somewhat greener bush, he would head straight for it, regardless of how vigorously Håkan pulled the reins, and only when all the lower leaves—the smaller and tenderer ones—had been devoured, would Pingo notice the tug of the rope. To make sure he had caught every single scrap, he would snort on the sand, dig in, and grope for the remainders with his lips. Once Pingo was sure there was nothing else to nibble on, he would lift his head and let Håkan regain control over their course. Eventually, seeing how much pleasure Pingo got from his feasts under the thickets (and always being eager to please his horse in any way possible), Håkan ended up indulging him every time.

  A few days after their departure, Pingo got diarrhea. Suspecting the leaves were the cause of the horse’s illness, Håkan tried to keep him from eating them. But no matter how hard he pulled his head away from the thickets, Pingo would still suck the creeping leaves out of the sand. The pony got worse. Hoping to replicate the symptoms in himself, Håkan plucked a handful of leaves from the bottom of the brush and ate them. They were bitter and rubbery, like small dead tongues. He waited. Nothing happened. Three or four more days went by, and Pingo lost considerable weight. His hindquarters stuck out from his emaciated body. His behavior changed, too. He
would stretch out, as if wanting to urinate, and remain in that position for a long time, then paw at the ground, and finally lie down and roll, with no consideration for the rider, who—after having nearly been crushed a few times—had learned to dismount with a jump at the first sign of these fits. In the end, Pingo was too sick to be mounted, and Håkan led him by the reins when he was able to move at all. He was completely puzzled by the animal’s condition. He felt the horse’s abdomen repeatedly without finding anything strange. And yet, it was clear that Pingo was dying. Then, one morning, overcome by despair after a fruitless examination, Håkan put his head to the horse’s midline in a loving rather than a clinical way. He heard a rustling sound, the lull of waves rolling in and out of a sandy beach. He pressed his ear closer to Pingo’s belly. A peaceful shore. The rushing whisper of sand in the surf. A placid seashore in his horse’s entrails. He pushed hard into the animal’s lower abdomen with his fist and once again put his ear to his side. The murmuring sand stream grew louder. Håkan emptied out a leather sack and, for the rest of the day, walked behind his horse. Late in the afternoon, Pingo finally evacuated his bowels, and Håkan collected a specimen with his sack. After carefully examining the manure without arriving at a conclusion, he filled the sack halfway with water, tied it shut, shook it, and let the contents settle. A few moments later, he stuck his hand in, careful not to disturb the liquid, and reached to the bottom. There was a thick layer of sand. Over the next day, Håkan repeated the test several times, always with the same result. He concluded that his horse had ingested inordinate amounts of dust while foraging for the tender leaves under the thickets. By now, Pingo was in severe pain. Håkan could see no other solution than to cut the horse’s abdomen open, make an incision into the large intestine, rinse out the sand, and then stitch it all back together. Performing such an operation unassisted and with limited instruments was, Håkan knew, fraught with danger, and Pingo’s chance of surviving this rudimentary procedure was slim. But he also knew that if he did nothing, the colic would kill the pony in a short time.