The Book of Fantasy

by Jorge Luis Borges

‘I am very hungry, compadre, very, very hungry.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me. I can see that, compadre,’ Macario asserted, not in the least afraid of the stranger’s horrible appearance.

  ‘Since you can see that and since you have no doubt that I need something substantial in my stomach, would you mind giving me that leg of the turkey you are holding?’

  Macario gave forth a desperate groan, shrugged and lifted up his arms in utter helplessness.

  ‘Well,’ he said, with mourning in his voice, ‘what can a poor mortal do against fate? I’ve been caught at last. There’s no way out any more. It would have been a great adventure, the good God in heaven knows it, but fate doesn’t want it that way. I shall never have a whole turkey for myself, never, never and never, so what can I do? I must give in. All right compadre, get your belly’s fill; I know what hunger is like. Sit down, hungry man, sit down. Half the turkey’s yours and be welcome to it.’

  ‘Oh, compadre, that is fine, very fine,’ said the hungry man, sitting down on the ground opposite Macario and widening his row of teeth as if he were trying to grin.

  Macario could not make out for sure what the stranger meant by that grin, whether it was an expression of thanks or a gesture of joy at having been saved from a sure death by starvation.

  ‘I’ll cut the bird in two,’ Macario said, in a great hurry now lest another visitor might come up and make his own part a third only. ‘Once I’ve cut the bird in two, you just look the other way and I’ll lay my machete flat between the two halves and you tell which half you want, that next to the edge or that next to the back. Fair enough, Bone Man?’

  ‘Fair enough, compadre.’

  So they had dinner together. And a mighty jolly dinner it was, with much clever talking on the part of the guest and much laughter on the side of the host.

  ‘You know, compadre,’ Macario presently said, ‘at first I was slightly upset because you didn’t fit into the picture of you I had in my mind. That box of mahogany with the clock in it which you carry hanging from your belt confused me quite a bit and made it hard for me to recognize you promptly. What has become of your hourglass, if it isn’t a secret to know?’

  ‘No secret at all, no secret at all. You may tell the world if it itches you to do so. You see, it was like this. There was a big battle in full swing somewhere around Europe, which is the fattest spot on earth for me next to China. And I tell you, compadre, that battle kept me on the run as if I were still a youngster. Hither and thither I had to dart until I went nearly mad and was exhausted entirely. So, naturally, I could not take proper care of myself as I usually do to keep me fit. Well, it seems a British cannon ball fired in the wrong direction by a half-drunken limey smashed my cherished hourglass so completely that it could not be mended again by old smith Pluto who likes doing such odd jobs. I looked around and around everywhere, but I could not buy a satisfactory new one since they are made no longer, save for decorations on mantel pieces which, like all such silly knickknacks, are useless. I tried to swipe one in museums, but to my horror I discovered that they were all fakes, not a genuine instrument among them.’

  A chunk of tender white meat which he chewed at this instant let him forget his story for a while. Remembering that he had started to tell something without finishing it, he now asked: ‘Oh, well, where was I with my tale, compadre?’

  ‘The hourglass in all the museums were all fakes wherever you went to try one out.’

  ‘Right. Yes, now isn’t it a pity that they build such wonderful great museums around things which are only fakes? Coming back to the point: there I was without a correctly adjusted hourglass, and many mistakes were bound to happen. Then it came to pass not long afterwards that I visited a captain sitting in his cabin of a ship that was rapidly sinking away under him and with the crew all off in boats. He, the captain I mean, having refused to leave his ship, had hoisted the Union Jack and was stubbornly sticking by his ship whatever might happen to her, as would become a loyal British captain. There he now sat in his cabin, writing up his log-book.

  ‘When he saw me right before him, he smiled at me and said: “Well, Mr Bone Man—Sir, I mean, seems my time is up.” “It is, skipper,” I confirmed, also smiling to make it easier for him and make him forget the dear ones he would leave behind. He looked at his chronometer and said: “Please, sir, just allow me fifteen seconds more to jot down the actual time in my log-book.” “Granted,” I answered. And he was all happiness that he could write in the correct time. Seeing him so very happy, I said: “What about it, Cap’n, would you mind giving me your chronometer? I reckon you can spare it now since you won’t have any use for it any longer, because aboard the ship you will sail from now on you won’t have to worry about time at all. You see, Cap’n, as a matter of fact my hourglass was smashed by a British cannon ball fired by a drunken British gunner in the wrong direction, and so I think it only fair and just that I should have in exchange for my hourglass a British-made chronometer.” ‘

  ‘Oh, so that’s what you call that funny-looking little clock—a chronometer. I didn’t know that,’ Macario broke in.

  ‘Yes, that’s what it is called,’ the hungry man admitted with a grin of his bared teeth. ‘The only difference is that a chronometer is a hundred times more exact in telling the correct time than an ordinary watch or a clock. Well, compadre, where was I?’

  ‘You asked the ship’s master for the chro . . .’

  ‘. . . nometer. Exactly. So when I asked him to let me have that pretty timepiece he said: “Now, you are asking for just the very thing, for it happens that this chronometer is my personal property and I can dispose of it any way it damn pleases me. If it were the company’s I would have to deny you that beautiful companion of mine. It was perfectly adjusted a few days before we went on this rather eventful voyage and I can assure you, Mr Bone Man, that you can rely on this instrument a hundred times better than on any of your old-fashioned glasses.” So I took it with me on leaving the rapidly sinking ship. And that’s how I came to carry this chronometer instead of that shabby outdated hourglass I used to have in bygone days.

  ‘And I can tell you one thing, compadre, this British-made gadget works so perfectly that, since I got hold of it, I have never yet missed a single date, whereas before that many a man for whom the coffin or the basket or an old sack had already been brought into the house escaped me. And I tell you, compadre, escaping me is bad business for everybody concerned, and I lose a good lot of my reputation whenever something of this sort happens. But it won’t happen anymore now.’

  So they talked, told one another jokes, dry ones and juicy ones, laughed a great deal together, and felt as jolly as old friends meeting each other after a long separation.

  The Bone Man certainly liked the turkey, and he said a huge amount of good words in praise of the wife who had cooked the bird so tastily.

  Entirely taken in by that excellent meal he, now and then, would become absent-minded and forget himself, and try to lick his lips which were not there with a tongue which he did not have.

  But Macario understood that gesture and regarded it as a sure and unmistakable sign that his guest was satisfied and happy in his own unearthly way.

  ‘You have had two visitors before today, or have you?’ the Bone Man asked in the course of their conversation.

  ‘True. How did you know, compadre?’

  ‘How did I know? I have to know what is going on around the world. You see, I am the chief of the secret police of—of—well, you know the Big Boss. I am not allowed to mention His name. Did you know them-those two visitors, I mean?’

  ‘Sure I did. What do you think I am, a heathen?’

  ‘The first one was what we call our main trouble.’

  ‘The Devil, I knew him all right,’ Macario said confidently. ‘That fellow can come to me in any disguise and I’d know him anywhere. This time he tried looking like a Charro, but smart as he thinks he is, he had made a few mistakes in dressing up, as foreigners are apt
to do. So it wasn’t hard for me to see that he was a counterfeit Charro.’

  ‘Why didn’t you give him a small piece of your turkey then, since you knew who he was? That hop-about-the-world can do you a great deal of harm, you know.’

  ‘Not to me, compadre. I know all his tricks and he won’t get me. Why should I give him part of my turkey? He had so much money that he had not pockets enough to put it in and so had to sew it outside on his pants. At the next inn he passes he can buy if he wishes a half dozen roast turkeys and a couple of young roast pigs besides. He didn’t need a leg or a wing of my turkey.’

  ‘But the second visitor was—well, you know Whom I refer to. Did you recognize Him?’

  ‘Who wouldn’t? I am a Christian. I would know Him anywhere. I felt awfully sorry that I had to deny Him a little bite, for I could see that He was very hungry and terribly in need of some food. But who am I, poor sinner, to give Our Lord a little part of my turkey. His father owns the whole world and all the birds because He made everything. He may give His Son as many roast turkeys as the Son wants to eat. What is more, Our Lord, Who can feed five thousand hungry people with two fishes and five ordinary loaves of bread all during the same afternoon, and satisfy their hunger and have still a few dozens of sacks full of crumbs left over—well, compadre, I thought that He Himself can feed well on just one little leaf of grass if He is really hungry. I would have considered it a really grave sin giving Him a leg of my turkey. And another thing, He Who can turn water into wine just by saying so can just as well cause that little ant walking here on the ground and picking up a tiny morsel to turn into a roast turkey with all the fillings and trimmings and sauces known in heaven.

  ‘Who am I, a poor woodchopper with eleven brats to feed, to humiliate Our Lord by making Him accept a leg of my roast turkey touched with my unclean hands? I am a faithful son of the Church, and as such I must respect the power and might and dignity of Our Lord.’

  ‘That’s an interesting philosophy, compadre,’ the Bone Man said. ‘I can see that your mind is strong, and that your brain functions perfectly in the direction of that human virtue which is strongly concerned with safeguarding one’s property.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of that, compadre.’ Macario’s face was a blank.

  ‘The only thing that baffles me now is your attitude toward me, compadre.’ The Bone Man was cleaning up a wing bone with his strong teeth as he spoke. ‘What I would like to hear is why did you give me half of your turkey when just a few minutes before you had denied as little as a leg or a wing to the Devil and also to Our Lord?’

  ‘Ah,’ Macario exclaimed, throwing up both his hands to emphasize the exclamation. And ‘Ah,’ he said once more, ‘that’s different; with you that’s very different. For one thing, I’m a human being and I know what hunger is and how it feels to be starved. Besides, I’ve never heard as yet that you have any power to create or to perform miracles. You’re just an obedient servant of the Supreme Judge. Nor have you any money to buy food with, for you have no pockets in your clothes. It’s true I had the heart to deny my wife a bite of that turkey which she prepared for me with all her love put in for extra spices. I had the heart because, lean as she is, she doesn’t look one-tenth as hungry as you do. I was able to put up enough will power to deny my poor children, always crying for food, a few morsels of my roast turkey. Yet, no matter how hungry my children are, none of them looks one-hundredth as hungry as you do.’

  ‘Now, compadre, come, come. Don’t try to sell me that,’ the dinner guest clattered, making visible efforts to smile. ‘Out with the truth. I can bear it. You said “For one thing” when you started explaining. Now tell me the other thing as well. I can stand the truth.’

  ‘All right then,’ Macario said quietly. ‘You see, compadre, I realized the very moment I saw you standing before me that I would not have any time left to eat as little as one leg, let alone the whole turkey. So I said to myself, as long as he eats too, I will be able to eat, and so I made it fifty-fifty.’

  The visitor turned his deep eyeholes in great surprise upon his host. Then he started grinning and soon he broke into a thundering laughter which sounded like heavy clubs drumming a huge empty barrel. ‘By the great Jupiter, compadre, you are a shrewd one, indeed you are. I cannot remember having met such a clever and quick-witted man for a long time. You deserve, you truly and verily deserve to be selected by me for a little service, a little service which will make my lonely existence now and then less boresome to me. You see, compadre, I like playing jokes on men now and then as my mood will have it. Jokes that don’t hurt anybody, and they amuse me and help me to feel my job is, somehow, less unproductive, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I guess I know how you mean it.’

  ‘Do you know what I am going to do so as to pay honestly for the dinner you offered me?’

  ‘What, compadre? Oh, please, sir, your lordship, don’t make me your assistant. Not that, please, anything else you wish, but not your helper.’

  ‘I don’t need an assistant and I have never had one. No, I have another idea. I shall make you a doctor, a great doctor who will outwit all those haughty learned physicians and superspecialists who are always playing their nasty little tricks with the idea that they can put one over on me. That’s what I am going to do: make you a doctor. And I promise you that your roast turkey shall be paid for a millionfold.’

  Speaking thus he rose, walked some twenty feet away, looked searchingly at the ground, at that time of the year dry and sandy, and called back: ‘Compadre, bring your guaje bottle over here. Yes, I mean that bottle of yours which looks as though it were of some strange variety of pumpkin. But first pour out all the water which is still in it.’

  Macario obeyed and came close to where his guest waited for him. The visitor spat seven times upon the dry ground, remained quiet for a few minutes and then, all of a sudden, crystal-clear water sputtered out of that sandy soil.

  ‘Hand me your bottle,’ the Bone Man said.

  He knelt down by the little pool just forming and with one hand spooned up the water and poured it into Macario’s guaje bottle. This procedure took quite some time, for the mouth of the bottle was extremely small.

  When the bottle, which held about a quart, was full, the Bone Man, still kneeling by the pool, tapped the soil with one hand and the water immediately disappeared from view.

  ‘Let’s go back to our eating place, compadre,’ the visitor suggested.

  Once more they sat down together. The Bone Man handed Macario the bottle. ‘This liquid in your bottle will make you the greatest doctor known in the present century. One drop of this fluid will cure any sickness, and I include any sickness known as a fatal and as an incurable one. But mind, and mind well, compadre, once the last drop is gone, there will be no more of that medicine and your curing power will exist no longer.’

  Macario was not at all excited over that great gift. ‘I don’t know if I should take that present from you. You see, compadre, I’ve been happy in my own way. True it is that I’ve been hungry always all through my life; always I’ve been tired, always been struggling with no end in view. Yet that’s the way with people in my position. We accept that life because it was given us. It’s for that reason we feel happy in our way—because we always try making the best of something very bad and apparently hopeless. This turkey we ate together today has been the very peak of my life’s ambition. I never wanted to go up higher in all my desires than to have one roast turkey with all the trimmings and fillings all for myself, and be allowed to eat it in peace and all alone with no hungry children’s eyes counting every little bite going into my hungry stomach.’

  ‘That’s just why. You didn’t have your roast turkey all by yourself. You gave me half of it, and so your life’s ambition is still not accomplished.’

  ‘You know, compadre, that I had no choice in the matter.’

  ‘I suppose you are right. Anyway, whatever the reason, your one and only desire in this world has not yet been s
atisfied. You must admit that. So, if you wish to buy another turkey without waiting for it another fifteen or twenty years, you will have to cure somebody to get the money with which to buy that turkey.’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ Macario muttered, as if speaking to himself. ‘I surely must have a whole roast turkey all for myself, come what may, or I’ll die a most unhappy man.’

  ‘Of course, compadre, there are a few more things which you ought to know before we part for a while.’

  ‘Yes, what is it, tell me.’

  ‘Wherever you are called to a patient you will see me there also.’

  On hearing that, unprepared as he was for the catch, Macario got the shivers.

  ‘Don’t get frightened, compadre, no one else will see me; and mind you well what I am going to tell you now. If you see me standing at your patient’s feet, just put one drop of your medicine into a cup or glass of fresh water, make him drink it, and before two days are gone he will be all right again, sane and sound for a good long time to come.’

  ‘I understand,’ Macario nodded pensively.

  ‘But if,’ the Bone Man continued, ‘you see me standing at your patient’s head, do not use the medicine; for if you see me standing thus, he will die no matter what you do and regardless of how many brilliant doctors attempt to snatch him away from me. In that case do not use the medicine I gave you because it will be wasted and be only a loss to you. You must realize, compadre, that this divine power to select the one that has to leave the world—while some other, be he old or a scoundrel, shall continue on earth—this power of selection I cannot transfer to a human being who may err or become corrupt. That’s why the final decision in each particular case must remain with me, and you must obey and respect my selection.’

  ‘I won’t forget that, sir,’ Macario answered.

  ‘You had better not. Well, now, compadre, let us say goodbye. The dinner was excellent, exquisite I should call it, if you understand that word. I must admit, and I admit it with great pleasure, that I have had an enjoyable time in your company. By all means, that dinner you gave me will restore my strength for another hundred years. Would that when my need for another meal is as urgent as it was today, I may find as generous a host as you have been. Much obliged, compadre. A thousand thanks. Good-bye.’