Ema the Captive

by Cesar Aira

  Dodi, a powerful chief from the south, had taken a fancy to this woman and bought her from the men who had captured her in a raid on some obscure fort. To dispel her sadness, he had moved heaven and earth to find the son from whom she had been separated. And yet the marriage had ended almost immediately. Perhaps Dodi had ceased to love her when she ceased to be sad. Had they parted on good terms? She appeared at Hual’s court soon afterward, and they asked her no questions. The prince thought her pretty: fragile and small, with delicate hands.

  She was as absorbed as her baby daughter in the feeding. Beside her, another young woman was feeding a newborn baby girl with the same concentration . . . Hual was disconcerted. The two mothers were so alike, he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t mixed them up.

  The light was failing. The days were not yet very long, but the savages behaved as if they were. Those who were waking up from their siestas went for a swim. They walked out into the still white water. It began to drizzle. The prince took refuge under an awning of waxed paper and called for drinks and cigars. His mind was a blank. He watched the swimmers, some of whom were very far from the shore. He felt certain vague anxieties. A mysterious desire.

  Suddenly he heard them all cry out and start swimming toward a point where there was a stirring in the water. They appeared to have found some aquatic creature and to be trying to catch it. Hual thought it might be a giant tortoise. The swimmers were about a hundred yards from the shore, but the water wasn’t deep; it came up only to their chests. The creature, whatever it was, must have been very large and vigorous. Everyone was shouting, jumping, and splashing.

  Finally they lifted the creature out of the water, and Hual could see it: a fish as big as a man, an enormous finless cylinder, two yards long, and white or faintly pink. The copper-colored bodies holding it seemed to be clasping a very white woman. With great difficulty, the men began to transport it toward the shore. Every time it wriggled, they were plunged underwater or lost their grip. Nevertheless, they managed to get the fish up onto the beach and toss it on the sand, well away from the water’s edge.

  In spite of the drizzle, Hual came out from under the awning, holding his cup, and drew near. The fish was dying with its eyes open. Its skin had a superlative smoothness and sheen. The children bent down to touch it. They were all saddened by the death of such a beautiful creature. Hual was in a philosophical mood.

  “Life,” he said, “is a primitive phenomenon, destined to vanish entirely. But extinction is not and will not be sudden. If it were, we would not be here. Destiny is what gives the incomplete and the open their aesthetic force. Then it retires to the sky. Destiny is a grand retiree. It has nothing to do with the human body’s anxious perceiving, which is more kinesthetic than visual, or in any case more imaginary than real. Destiny is concerned only with the flower, but the flower has no weight; we want the melon. The melon flower is like a little yellow-brown orchid. The vines of the melon spread over the ground chaotically, in a way that is not lifelike at all. We’re interested in things that have solidity and give, things that take up space, not conversations!”

  A pause.

  “This creature, is it not an apparition? It makes me think of the insignificance of life, how excessive it is, too full of things and thereby liable to ridicule. But thought is not overelaborate. It’s all a question of periods and moments of anticipation, and human life with all its drama is no more than a part of the moment.”

  His men were listening in reverent silence.

  “And this moment, born of melancholy, what is it but a portrait of the human race? Everything is strange; everything is impossible. For example, the fact that we are gathered here looking at a fish. Our faculties are scattered, wandering the world in search of beauty; but the fish has forgotten evolution.”

  At that moment, as if intending to prove him wrong, the fish wriggled and spat out a mouthful of pearly water, then lay still again. Hual continued:

  “An event is always the inverted image of what does not occur. Which is why one should not speak of existence as a homogenous category. I would say that all things belong to one of two classes, just two: scenes and people. Luckily we do not have to choose. How could we? Sometimes I favor scenes, after a copious lunch, for instance. On the other hand, when I consider the beauty of a moment, I sense the terrible moment of human beings drawing near.”

  Drops of rain had filled his cup. An umbrella had been opened over him as he spoke. The fish was dead, in its white and pink splendor. The prince’s sadness was apparent. There was a gloomy tone to his stammering. When he lifted the cup to his lips, he discovered that his liquor had been diluted and he poured it away. He was already on his way back to the awning when inspiration struck: he would take the fish and give it to Islaí as a gift, straight away; they would eat it for dinner.

  It was a superb opportunity, although not covered by protocol. But that didn’t matter on the island. Islaí was one of his half brothers, chief and commander of several western tribes. On coming to Carhué and learning that he was there too, Hual had regretted that announcing one’s visits was forbidden by etiquette, since Islaí was the only member of his family whom he liked. Now the appearance of such a wonderful gift gave him a perfect excuse to break with custom and surprise his half brother.

  He had been told that Islaí was camped not far away, on the same side of the island. Soon it would be dark. As soon as the fish was loaded onto a cart (which his men built on the spot and hitched to two little horses), he gave the order to set off. They all set out in the rain and the dusk, accompanied by the cries of irritated birds. Disparate breezes were whipping up the water, and soon they were soaked. Those with elaborate body painting were sad to see their patterns running.

  The fish gave off a faint pink phosphorescence. Lying inert on its bed of leaves, it was a rather sinister object. They preferred not to look at it. Someone spied the campfires ahead and spread the word. At the same time there was a whistling: Islaí’s people had recognized them. Islaí in person came out to welcome the visitors, with page boys and parasols and paper lanterns. Hual dismounted and they hugged dramatically.

  “I couldn’t resist the temptation to come and have a little chat.”

  “I feel bad! I should have taken the first step, my dearest Hual.”

  “How are things?” asked the visitor.

  “How are things?” replied the host.

  They made their way to the tents, followed by Hual’s retinue. Islaí’s people were illuminated by the fire’s deep yellow, which passed through the canopies and lit up the gauze of fine rain. As soon as the newcomers were under cover, they closed their parasols and hurriedly removed their bark capes. Their hosts lit more fires and bulked out the dinner with the provisions that had been brought as gifts. Soon they were all fraternizing. The visitors were thirsty, and the drink flowed.

  Hual savored the contents of his cup without being able to tell what it was. Lotus cider. When he found out, he changed cups; he was wary of drinks made from flowers, believing that they diminished virility. But suddenly he tapped his forehead and clicked his fingers.

  “I forgot! I brought you a gift.”

  He told two warriors to go and fetch it. Now Islaí seemed to be positively scandalized.

  “You really shouldn’t have! I should be giving you a gift!”

  “It’s nothing, just a silly little thing, something we found on the way, and since we were coming to visit . . .” said Hual, smiling mischievously in anticipation.

  Islaí and all his courtiers were speechless when the men carried in that smooth, pink corpse. Hual fell under its spell himself, when he took his eyes off their captivated faces. The bearers came forward into the lantern-light, the oily shine of their skin contrasting with the matte surface of the fish. The effect was due in part to an impression of awkwardness: a flexible, irregular cylinder of that size and weight is no easy thing to carry.

&nbs
p; Once the charmed silence was broken, everyone blurted out exclamations and comments.

  “It’s a mullet!” a fisherman claimed authoritatively.

  “It’s a queen manatee!” said another.

  Unconsciously, they were reaching for feminine names, because the creature looked so much like a white woman at first glance. And the first thing Islaí said was:

  “I thought you had brought me a dead captive woman.”

  “I’m sure that would have pleased you more.”

  “Not at all! I’ve been given hundreds of captive women, but this . . .”

  He couldn’t find the words. He told his people to clean and roast the fish. But first, he had two of his most skilled butchers peel off the skin, which they did in two minutes, in front of everyone. It was fascinating to watch them at work. What they removed turned out to be a very heavy, soft silk of the most exquisite pink. Islaí couldn’t help noticing the look of envy and sorrow that appeared on Hual’s face and, on a generous impulse, offered to share this treasure with him. Undeterred by Hual’s lukewarm protests, he had it cut in half there and then.

  “I accept it,” said Hual. “I’ll have it made into a waistcoat.”

  “And I’ll have my half made into a set of belts.”

  In their excitement they drank like seals, and everyone imitated them. The creature was pierced lengthways with a spit, and promptly roasted. The chiefs were served first. The flesh was delicate but insipid, in spite of which Islaí pronounced all the words of praise that came into his mouth and rolled his eyes as he chewed. Then they ate snails.

  Islaí was a great music lover (and composer). He never went anywhere without a complete orchestra of triangles, bells, drumsticks, harps, and all kinds of instruments, some of which he had designed or adapted himself. He had trumpets two yards long, for instance, which produced an indescribably high sound. But he liked to surround himself with discreet, imperceptible music. It continued all through the meal, but couldn’t be heard over the conversation, and even when everyone was silent, the murmur of the rain was enough to drown out the concert.

  .

  Ema spent two years among the Indians, two years of wandering or immobility, going from court to court, sometimes at the mercy of a minor king’s whims, sometimes with a little band of young people, protected by the ambiguity of their allegiances, always on the move. It was, perhaps, the decisive phase of her adolescent education. She came to know the most characteristic feature of indigenous life: etiquette and license were in permanent, indissoluble contact. The etiquette of time, the license of eternity. Vision and rest. The sleepy sound of water. That was what they lived for.

  Kings and subjects sustained one other in a condition of mutual ecstasy, with their presumptuous presences and the resulting amazement. Everything was profane, but daily life seemed to recede into the distance because of its gravity. They sacrificed everything for the privilege of keeping their lives unspoilt. They scorned work because it might lead to a result. Their politics was a collection of images. They knew they were human, but in a strange way. The individual was never human: art prevented that.

  Their pastimes were smoking, drinking, and painting. Summer ripened the fruit of the uruku, from which they made body paint. Their designs were evanescent; a night of exposure to the dew or rubbing during coitus was enough to obliterate them.

  The tongues spoken by the Indians were various but similar. With all the traveling around, the languages got mixed up. Apparently there was a dominant language for imperial diplomacy and commerce. But nobody was sure which one it was. According to legend, Pincén, the most powerful chief of the moment, spoke the “passive esperanto” of beggars.

  The setting for Ema’s odyssey was provided by the forest of Pillahuinco, which at that time extended for thousands of leagues to the west, sheltering the whole clan of savage cultures. The camps were set up in clearings, or out on the pampa: empty spaces, open-air observatories. Sometimes the band with which Ema was traveling would venture across treeless plains. The Indians who lived there were different, more unstable. The most remarkable of those tribes was that of chief Osorito, on the moor of Cuchillo-Có.

  Ema spent no more than a fleeting springtime with Hual, much of it on the island of Carhué. It was a calm and convivial phase. Hual’s life was a continual renewal of power. The highly prized black and scarlet varieties of uruku that grew like weeds on his land provided him with succulent profits. His social life was extremely intense: Ema had the opportunity to meet all the chiefs in Hual’s orbit, who all paid taxes to one or another of Catriel’s tributaries or satraps.

  Although she was no different from the Indian women, with her dark skin and Asian features, she was categorized as white because of her history, and not just as a white woman but a captive: a romantic title that inflamed the savage imagination. The chiefs, however, were perfectly blasé: hundreds of captive women passed through their hands each year, and only a bizarre inventiveness could excite them. Still, there was a certain charm to the state of indifference, vague but not to be disdained.

  After parting with Hual, she spent the whole summer traveling with a band of young people, the kind who took no account of time. They seemed to be living solely to prove that fixed moments do not exist. Nature closed its valves for them and presented a single continuous edge, firm and smooth: they called it “the gala edge.”

  Sometimes they happened on a specially curious place and spent weeks there, hunting in the surrounding area, or fishing, or collecting mushrooms. They fished using timbó poison and hunted birds with paralyzing smoke, which they released by shooting arrows through paper globes. Ema began and abandoned a collection of butterflies. She swapped her display cases for a little golden horse, which she named Anise. She had a saddle made with seats on either side for Francisco and her baby girl.

  The group traveled on horseback or in lightweight carts, rarely going faster than a man on foot. Ema was amazed. They were crossing immense territories, and the speed of their progress seemed disproportionately slow. Yet they always reached their destination. Distances, she concluded, are in fact reducible to immediacy, and human movement is a transformation.

  The first thing the travelers did on reaching a village was to inquire into the hierarchy and make the visits required by protocol. They were welcomed with pleasure or, at worst, with indifference. When the time came to leave, some of the group might stay behind if they liked the feel of the place; conversely, a member of the local tribe might wrench himself away to join them.

  With a few exceptions, all these people paid taxes to Catriel or to one of his subordinate chiefs. Some were richer or more important, surrounded by amenities and extravagance, while others went naked. But at bottom it was always the same: leisure and universal rivalry. They would often tell stories about the western kings. One claimed to have visited a royal court; another said that he had seen Cafulcurá’s bodyguards, somewhere. Those legendary names set the travelers dreaming. Ema had conceived the desire to visit the home of a king, and she was told that it was not impossible. Since many of the others shared this aspiration, they hatched a plan to visit Catriel’s settlement. They would have to march west, in a straight line, and the journey would take months. The chiefs they were visiting encouraged them in this enterprise. Catriel was, it seemed, going through a conciliatory phase. With the court “frozen,” it would not be hard to get an introduction. Their hosts even gave them the names of certain functionaries and ladies (which they may well have invented).

  One day at the beginning of autumn, the group set off at dawn, along a corridor of sunken flatlands, between distant edges of the forest.

  They didn’t travel quickly; everything was an excuse to stop. On average they spent one day in three resting and gathering provisions. But they were making progress. They could tell, because the places they were passing through were becoming more unfamiliar and strange. They caught and ate bird
s they had never tasted before, quail-doves, for example, which keep a clump of eggs hidden in their abdominal cavity. Occasionally some strange creature would come to watch them pass, intrigued. All the earthbound animals they saw had phenomenal tails.

  They avoided the regular mail route because they didn’t want to stop in the towns along the way, although they did chance upon some of them. One night they were traveling by the light of the moon (they had slept all afternoon), and they came to a village that was fast asleep. The horses made no sound at all as they passed through the dead streets. They didn’t wake anyone and never found out who lived there.

  Traveling south, their route brought them back to the course of the Pillahuinco, from which they had diverged a month before. They tried the water and found that it had a more bitter taste, perhaps because of the nodules of manganese protruding from the ground like giant cigars. The travelers spent a few days camped on a beach where all they could hear, faintly, now and then, was the song of a bird or the cry of a fox. Everything was familiar, and yet at the same time strange. The self-assurance of the Indians became a tremulous, indefinite feeling. Relying on guesswork, they supposed that the main settlement was not far away. Perhaps a few days’ march. The season was definitely turning. The lizards were going underground to hibernate.

  One day they came across a tapir, as big as a rhinoceros, with dirty, pepper-and-salt bristles all over, and two tusks as long as a man’s arm. Its feet, tail and jaw were covered in mud. It stepped into the middle of the path, stood there watching them with an insect-like fixity, and made a snoring noise. When they threw a stone at it, the tapir ran away so flummoxed that it crashed into a tree.

  But they hoped to see less inoffensive creatures. Catriel’s gamekeepers, who excelled in the arts of husbandry, had populated his realm with the rarest and most beautiful species of pheasants, which in some cases were also the most ferocious. The first one they saw would be a sign that they were nearing the capital. Not the common charatas with their long green tails and shrill cries, or the yellow urus, but authentic pheasants with multicolored plumage and a hump.