The Hare

7: The Duck’s Egg

“The duck’s egg is the most effective of all,” Coliqueo declared with an air of finality.

Clarke felt completely overwhelmed by the situation, out of place, struck dumb. The tent was full of women, children, dogs, and a fire where water was constantly being boiled for tea. Despite the fact that two of the leather sideflaps had been rolled up to allow air to circulate, the tent was still thick with smoke, so that Coliqueo and Clarke’s eyes were as pink as if they had been weeping profusely over the death of a loved one. And that in a sense was what Clarke had been doing, because he had sat vigil all afternoon over the dead body of Truth. Coliqueo was the prototype of the dishonest Indian, which might be comical at first, but became increasingly depressing as time went by. For his guest, that time had been and gone a long while since.

The way they had arrived at the duck was tortuous in the extreme, even though with hindsight it seemed not only direct, but even over-hasty. All the Indian’s lies and deliberate misleadings came together as if they were part of a deliberate stratagem. Of course there was no plan: Coliqueo did not have the brain for that. But on reflection, the twenty-four hours that the three white men had spent in his camp were nothing if not predictable. As he began to listen to the story of the duck’s egg, Clarke was at pains to go over in his mind what had happened up to that point. He did this quickly, but in a detailed fashion, because the secret of his fatalistic acceptance lay in the details. It did not matter that there was a gap in the conversation; there had been others before that, and with less reason; besides which common courtesy, to which he continued to pay tribute even among these savages, owed him this respite. His interlocutor could put up with a silence. In all fairness, it was the least he could do.

Coliqueo was a tall, thin, ungainly man, as black as an African, with the face of a Chinese gangster and flowing locks lightened by chamomile. He wore a filthy army uniform that revealed his skinny grease-covered frame (the Indians were so brutish that they used grease even when dressed in clothes). Like all the rest of them, Coliqueo drank; he had that animal, cruelly cunning streak that the Indians got from habitual drinking. Although he was supposed to come from the most blue-blooded Mapuche aristocracy, he had no manners whatsoever. Clarke was surprised to find himself put out that Coliqueo indulged only in the briefest of squints when he sat down to talk with him. After all, he told himself, what did it matter to him. The Duke and Duchess of Kent, whom he encountered in his own country, did not turn cross-eyed on formal occasions, and nobody thought any the worse of them for that.

The chaos and promiscuity of Coliqueo’s encampment were in stark contrast to the courtly disposition of Salinas Grandes. In fact, it was a provisional settlement, or rather a seasonal one, as in the winters these Indians took advantage of the hospitality of their white allies. Although they were totally influenced by the white man, they were no less Indian for it; on the contrary, some of their peculiarities were spectacularly exaggerated. They had chosen to spend the summer in an area of low hills, through which a narrow, treeless river ran.

The previous night, when the three white men had arrived, the Indians had been in the middle of a feast. They were celebrating the wedding feast of Coliqueo’s eldest son, a youth who atop a magnificent body had the same head as his father. Coliqueo was proud that his fifteen sons all looked like him. He made them line up in the bonfire light for Clarke to inspect: and it was true, they did all have his features, some more, some less. Some indeed had almost none; but here imagination and goodwill came into play, plus their progenitor’s assertion.

There were both drawbacks and advantages to arriving in the midst of an Indian feast as they had done; among the latter was the fact of being able to mingle almost unnoticed among the uproar and to observe without themselves being the object of unwanted attention. And the savages lent themselves almost excessively to observation, smothered in grease, turned into mirrors. They even performed a dance, in which the men came together, moved apart, formed circles, lines. They performed it as if against their will: holding themselves rigid, pretending to be clumsy, to be drunk, slow, or forgetful. In order to represent drunkenness, they drank like fish; the rest followed naturally. The women of the tribe meanwhile stood apart in their own disheveled group, screaming at the tops of their voices. Once the men’s dance had finished, they began to sing. A chorus of victims of the worst imaginable tortures could not have come out with a more terrible noise. Then after these attractions, everyone drank and screamed some more. They had all eaten unbelievable amounts of meat. Several cows, doubtless specially fattened for the occasion, had been slaughtered. The three white men stayed close to each other and refused as much as courtesy would allow, making their ribs of meat last as long as possible, merely wetting their lips in the mugs of liquor that were passed round. Even so, Carlos turned green and had to go and be sick; after that, he went from fire to fire and group to group, looking without much hope for Yñuy. Gauna, who on this occasion was very careful with his drink, fell in with some relatives of the chieftain, while Clarke had to put up with the latter’s ceaseless chatter until it was almost morning. He could never have recalled half of the senseless stories the Indian had told him. Coliqueo spoke incoherently, not so much due to the drink (which was to blame only for the general stupidity of his talk) but because he thought this made what he said sound more serious, more impressive. He did in fact possess a quite logical mind, but for some reason Clarke could not fathom, he believed that this quality was for second-rate people, or only to be used for domestic purposes. He created monstrous sentences, joining the subject of one with the predicate of another, in order to increase their vagueness. The Voroga dialect lent itself to contortions of this kind: indeed it seemed as though it had been specifically created for them. Eventually, the fires went out (they were fetid, made of dry manure) and in the vague daylight the Indians looked bleary-eyed and gloomy. So everyone went to sleep. On his and the others’ behalf, Clarke turned down the chieftain’s offer of his tent. He said they were accustomed to sleeping in the open air, and found it healthier. Since Gauna had asthma, and had suffered an attack during the feast, his little lie sounded convincing. The result however was that Clarke could not get a wink of sleep because of the daylight. Instead, in a state of indignant stupor, he went over Coliqueo’s endless nonsense in his mind. The Indian chief had not even asked him what his name was, or where he came from. He had spent the whole time talking, and about what? About what, good God? The worst of it was that he created the same sort of monsters from his topics as he did from his sentences. It was the method of a born liar: in that way, he did not even have to commit himself to his lies. And as for the other matter, the one which had brought Clarke to the camp, the tribe did not appear to be interested in war in the slightest, and their leader still less: but then, it was probably best not to put too much weight on the previous night’s impressions. Carlos was sleeping on his gear, his mouth wide open. Gauna had gone off on his own to join some other white men he had met among the Vorogas, one of whom he knew from before. Clarke had shared no more than a few words with them, but promised himself he would sound them out during the day, if Gauna had not already done so in private.

The Vorogas got up very late, and Coliqueo did not appear until one o’clock. Clarke and his companions were given some sticky cakes for breakfast, washed down with a bitter boiled maté. Clarke and Carlos spent a long while staring at Indian men and women, who were busy doing nothing. There was no one for them to exchange a word with. The white men in whose company Gauna had spent the night did not seem much more promising. Gauna introduced them to his former friend, a half-caste by the name of Aristídes Ordóñez.

“What do you know about Cafulcurá?” Clarke asked him point-blank.

“Who?”

Clarke turned to Gauna: “Can he really not know who Cafulcurá is?”

“Don’t you know who Cafulcurá is?”

“No,” said Ordóñez.

“Have you never heard of him?”

“I don’t get involved in Indian matters, boss.”

“What do you do, then?”

“I write.”

This was enough to awaken Clarke’s dormant interest.

“You’re the chieftain’s scribe?”

“That’s right, by your leave.”

“And who on earth does that madman have to write to?”

“He dictates endless memorandums, all of them addressed to Rosas.”

“Since when could you write?” Gauna asked him, with his habitual suspiciousness.

“A priest taught me.”

“Which one?”

“The one who used to stay in the houses. . the one with the pigs, you remember?”

“Ah, that one,” said Gauna.

“What happened to the pigs?” Clarke asked. Gauna did not even deign to reply, but stared into the distance. Ordóñez answered on his behalf: “He bought four pigs, and they all died of the evil eye.”

“That priest,” Gauna condescended to comment, “was the dumbest person who ever drew breath.”

“By the way,” Clarke said to Ordóñez, “what’s the matter with Coliqueo? Is he smoking too much?”

“No more than normal.”

“How about drink?”

“Yes, of course. He likes a bit of everything.”

“He says things that are hard to interpret.”

“You’re right, he is a bit odd. But he’s not a bad sort.”

Clarke kept his thoughts to himself. Aristídes Ordóñez did not appear to him to be a particularly good sort. Who could say what he was escaping from among the savages? And if Gauna succeeded in getting any useful information out of him, he would not tell Clarke — the two of them appeared to have come from the same mold, but at least Clarke was used to Gauna by now.

Soon afterward, Coliqueo sent for Clarke to come to his tent, and so the unbearable interview began. Clarke went alone, sending Carlos off to have a dip in the river.

“I gather,” the chieftain started by saying, focusing his eyes normally after the briefest of squints, “that your honor has come from Salinas Grandes.”

“That’s right. Last night I didn’t have the chance to mention it, because in fact it seemed rather a mouthful.”

“Because your mouth was full of half a cow at least!”

Clarke sighed: his intended joke had fallen flat in Voroga. The Indian went on:

“So my distant cousin Cafulcurá — the more distant the better — has vanished into thin air?”

“You knew about that?”

“I heard about it the other day, by chance.”

“And what did you make of it?”

“I split my sides laughing.”

“Don’t you think he might be in danger?”

“What kind of danger?” Up to this point, Coliqueo had tried to be reasonable, but this was too much for him. Before the Englishman could reply, he raised his arms in protest: “I had nothing to do with it! I knew they’d try to pin it on me! I’m sick to death of those charlatans!”

“If it’s any reassurance, I can promise you that nobody in Salinas Grandes suspected you of having anything to do with it.”

“I should think not! To get me mixed up in their fantasies!”

“But this isn’t a fantasy. The man has vanished.”

“And what do I care?”

“Aren’t the Vorogas enemies of the Huilliches?”

“We have signed a treaty of everlasting peace. It’s a dead letter, but I’m happy enough with it. My concern is my people: production, development, foreign affairs. Within my modest domain, I aim to be a model statesman. They on the other hand live from stealing, from lazing about, from extortion. They’re empty-headed and envious. That madman Cafulcurá has raised the new generation in such an atmosphere of fantastic beliefs, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he ended up dead thanks to some prophecy or spell or other. Serve him right.”

“You’re not mistaken, Mister Coliqueo, at least as far as I am able to judge. I saw some of it in the few hours I spent in their court. But the picture you paint is too gloomy: the Huilliches seem happy enough, superstition or no superstition.”

“Good for them.”

“They have a particular devotion to personal hygiene.”

“To me, politics comes first. Hygiene is secondary.”

“Well, it all depends on what your definition of politics is. For example, I interpreted your earlier words as denigrating the weight that the politics of magic has for them.”

“That’s not politics, it’s hocus-pocus!”

“What if it works?”

“Don’t make me laugh! Do you think it means it’s effective, if their chieftain disappears into thin air in front of his subjects’ noses? They’re condemned to live in a system which is constantly feeding his lunacy. I’m sure for example that this latest episode has given rise to a whole series of laughable exorcisms by his shamans. They’ll climb yet another rung of the ridiculous. It’s effective in a kind of way, I agree, but it’s absurd. But tell me, who is it they suspect?”

“They weren’t blaming ghosts, I can assure you. They presumed — I have no idea with what degree of accuracy or truth — that it had been a woman. .”

“Rondeau’s Widow! I don’t believe it! They really can’t see beyond their own mad ideas, can they?”

“Is it such a remote possibility?”

“There is no possibility at all. To accuse the Widow is no more than hot air. It’s like saying that a story can become real just like that, because they say so. That’s a good example of their ‘effectiveness’ for you. They’re so far gone they take their own fantasies seriously.”

“What makes you so sure in this case?”

“Because the Widow came through here about a week ago, and she is concerned with other things; if her body — and I can swear to it — never came within a hundred leagues of Cafulcurá, her mind has been a thousand leagues away of late. She was going to join her daughter to celebrate her fifteenth birthday. And it’s not that I’m trying to excuse that viper, much less be her accomplice. On the contrary, I’d be more than pleased if they accused her, pursued her, and wiped her out. It would be one less problem. If I ever get my hands on her. .”

Clarke thought Coliqueo was contradicting himself, because he had just asserted that the Widow had paid him a visit only a few days earlier. He made no comment. Coliqueo had started up again, this time with one of his leading questions:

“Do you want to know what happened to Cafulcurá?”

“Of course.”

“One of his sons killed him: Namuncurá or Alvarito Reymacurá.”

“Well. . Namuncurá was not in Salinas Grandes.”

“Where else could he have been? He must have been hidden. They spend the whole time saying the same thing: that the ‘princes of peace’ chase women, that they pursue shimmering illusions like migratory storks. . It’s all lies. That farce about twins. The duck’s egg. The hare. The blue gallstone. Pure bunkum! That poor old man is probably paying for his sins buried somewhere on the outskirts of their camp. And his sons are about to gouge each other’s eyes out. What an edifying spectacle that will be!”

“Whose side will you be on?”

“Me? Nobody’s. It’s for them to sort it out.”

“Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but you said you were interested in foreign affairs. That’s quite logical. All the more so considering the fact that the Mapuche federation is in a state of organic equilibrium from Tierra del Fuego up to Córdoba. I don’t understand therefore how you cannot be concerned about the key element in that equilibrium, which is Cafulcurá.”

“That’s because I base my effectiveness on other premises. To be concerned about one individual thing is to lose sight of the whole. Take you, for example, what is it you do?”

At last he’s asking me, thought Clarke. “I’m an English naturalist.”

“A contemplative person?”

“To some extent. It could be said I practice an active kind of contemplation.”

“What area do you work in?”

“Animals, mostly. Although it’s impossible to rule out everything else, because Nature, as you just pointed out, is a whole.”

“Did I say that? Look, what do you think about the duck?”

“What duck?”

Coliqueo thought for a moment. Eventually he said:

“Cafulcurá is full of animal stories. He must have told you lots.”

“Some, but not all that many. One of his shamans told me more. .”

“Which one?”

“One called Mallén.”

“Is that cheap charlatan still around? I can just see him, forever

peddling his stale repertoire of worthless tricks. Goodness, what a sad lot they are. They’re caught in a mechanism where they can’t change any of the parts, because none of them is real. You’re a scientist: you see one animal for example, then another. . you make a note of the first, then the second, you think about it, you trust in the grandeur and variety of the world. But them. . what a difference!”

“They’re different cultures.”

“No, sir. That is to use the concept of culture as an excuse to sanction mediocrity, to persist in superstition and brutishness. They are like children, fascinated by their toys.”

By this point Clarke, a victim of his companion’s supreme self-deception, had come to regard him as wise and thoughtful. He yielded to this optimism:

“My position as observer, Mister Coliqueo, allows me to take advantage of whatever perspective the people I meet have adopted. The Huilliches’ is one of many. Yours is another, much more rational one. . ”

“Look, you and I understand each other. You wouldn’t have time to do a spot of work for me, would you? I could pay you well, and I’m sure your studies would benefit from it.”

“Well. . I’m in the middle of an investigation.”

“You aren’t looking for Cafulcurá, are you?” the chieftain asked jokingly.

“What work is it?”

“It concerns everlasting peace, no less. You would be performing a true service for these lands, with little effort, and at the same time it would remove you from that circle of nonsense which, whatever you may say, your Huilliche friends must have ensnared you in. I’m talking about reality, tangible things, things that can be thought about without a sense of shame. I suppose you have heard about the question of everlasting peace. The Mapuche federation, which has fought within itself for centuries, has finally brought the clearest of its logic to bear on that radiant point which is everlasting peace: the end of time, the dawn of life. Do you believe it’s possible?”

Clarke did not know whether to say yes or no.

“I’m glad you’re hesitating,” Coliqueo said, “because in fact the reply lies elsewhere. Did you believe those animal legends that Mallén told you?”

“Of course not.” How stupid of him! Clarke thought afterward. He had walked straight into the trap.

“Good for you. One of those legends is that of a duck’s egg with two yolks, from which will come two identical ducks, who will swim at dawn on a secret southern lake: and that will be the day of everlasting peace.”

A silence. Clarke had not the faintest notion of what was coming next.

“Well, the job I had in mind is for you to get that duck’s egg for me. With all your knowledge, and with time at your disposal which I don’t have because of all the problems I have to contend with here, and above all with a mind like yours free from prejudice, you’ll find it in no time. And then I’ll be the true emperor.”

Clarke’s astonishment was like a mental earthquake. He suddenly realized that everything he had been listening to, with such naive consideration, was nothing more than the ranting of a complete madman. What a waste of time! It was then that Coliqueo proffered his final sentence from on high:

“The duck’s egg is the most effective of all.”

“I need to get some air. If you’ll excuse me. .”

Clarke stood up.

“Yes, off you go. We’ll meet later. Think it over.”

Clarke left the tent taking great gulps of air. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, especially when faced with the demanding jury represented by the inner scruples of an Englishman with a good education. Together with the air, Clarke sucked in all the images around him, to clear his mind. The Voroga camp seemed less miserable than it had that morning. The blue of the afternoon sky, the children’s cries, the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the loose horses, the glances of the Indian women — everything drew him back to a normality he had momentarily felt tremble beneath his feet. He walked toward the gully where they had left their troop of horses and their gear. Aristídes Ordóñez was sitting keeping watch. Clarke asked where Gauna was.

“I don’t know,” the gaucho said, “he left me to look after things, but that was a long time ago. He’s not come back, and I have to leave.”

“Yes, off you go. Many thanks.”

Clarke was left on his own. A few minutes went by, and he began to regret having come to replace Ordóñez. He was stuck there now until nightfall, because there was little hope that Gauna and Carlos would interrupt whatever they were doing to come and see if he needed them. And if he so much as budged, everything would be stolen, down to their stirrups. He decided at least to enjoy his solitude. He lit his pipe, and began to smoke staring at the river, which flowed past beneath him. It was a small, treeless stream; the little water it contained was far from clean. At the top of the riverbank lay the untidy assortment of tents. Many of the Indians had come out like him to enjoy the fresh air. The Vorogas looked exactly the same as the Huilliches, except that they spoke a different language; once out of earshot, this distinguishing feature naturally disappeared. And yet it was still there. Since in reality nothing is imperceptible, thought Clarke, the difference was absolute, and involved their entire appearance. And the difference could be summed up by saying that in Salinas Grandes the Indians lived outside life, whereas here they were inside it. He had landed directly in the realm of fable, which he had taken to be real; now he had to get used to the idea that this fable was merely an island in the ocean of normal life. Plebeian and westernized, the Vorogas were a reminder of the ordinary things in society. To be completely ordinary, all that was needed was for them to work. Of course, there was no danger of them making that sacrifice, not even for aesthetic reasons.

Something in the river caught his attention. Something whitish was floating downstream at the leisurely pace of the murky current. He found himself unable to tear his gaze from the undulations of this large, soft object. It was only when it passed in front of him that he realized what it was: a man’s shirt, its arms slowly waving almost as if it were filled with a drowning body. It drifted on down the stream and disappeared round a bend, still in the center of the current, as slowly and as inexplicably as it had appeared. Clarke wondered if it might not be a passive kind of washing, by distance rather than by scrubbing.

His thoughts spread to more general considerations concerning the aporias of sight. The way the Vorogas reflected current society coincided with the river current, and in both cases the idea coincided with what he had been looking at, and the time span his gaze had created. Two young Indian girls walked past him arm-in-arm, staring at him provocatively, then started whispering and giggling in a hysterical manner. A short while later, they were back; on this occasion they asked him the time, but without waiting for his answer, began to whisper and giggle again. One of them turned her head. . they could not have been more than ten years old, but they were already behaving like experienced streetwalkers.

A dog came up to Clarke, a skinny mongrel which sniffed at him as though he were an object.

It was at this moment that Gauna appeared. He was in a hurry, and had his usual morose look on his face. When he saw Clarke sitting among their gear, he slowed down, and his face darkened still further. He sat down beside Clarke, and stared into the distance. Clarke wanted to ask him how he had met Ordóñez, but did not have time: Gauna came straight to the point:

“We’re wasting our time, don’t you think?”

A thousand ingenious and philosophically intriguing responses flashed through Clarke’s mind, but something told him it would be better not to risk any of them. He had found that this kind of reply only took the conversation away from what really mattered. What had come to seem most important, given all the philosophically intriguing events that had happened to him, was the need for action. He was therefore willing to hear what the gaucho had to say, because he sensed that thanks to him they might finally begin to act. And indeed it was on this point that Gauna, without seeming at all put out by the lack of response, now insisted:

“They could go on talking to you here for a year or two, and you’d still be stuck where you were at the start. The hare, as they say, leaps where least expected — always supposing that you’re expecting something, however little, in reality. And you’re looking for a hare, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Gauna.”

“You’ll be surprised to hear that I am too.”

“Yes? You didn’t tell me.”

“You didn’t ask. You were so busy chewing the fat with the kid that my intentions were never mentioned.”

“That’s easily put right. As I’ve said often that it’s become second nature to me: I’m all ears.”

“But we’ve had more than enough talk! What I’m suggesting is that we leave here today, right now.”

“Heading where?”

“Heading after the Widow. I’ve found out that she’s close by, three or four days’ ride to the southeast, no more. She came through near here less than a week ago, and apparently she was in no hurry.”

“Coliqueo told me something of the sort. I agree it’s probably true — but what’s so important about the Widow that we should go in search of her? I don’t think she kidnapped Cafulcurá.”

“Nobody has ever believed that.”

“But Mallén. .”

“You’re so naive! You’ve swallowed everything you’ve been told, without exception. And then you say you don’t believe in God!”

Now it was Gauna’s turn to bring in philosophy. Clarke deliberately did not follow him down that track:

“Well then?”

“The Widow has got the Hare. Or will be getting it in the next few days. It’s as simple as that.”

(Clarke supplied the capital “H” in his own mind, and could have sworn it was there in reality.)

“Explain yourself, I beg you.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I can believe anything, as you’ve said. But I prefer to know what it is I am believing in.”

“It’s not something that can be explained in a couple of words. It’s a long story.”

The summer afternoon had merged into an extraordinary purple sunset. As if shot like arrows, huge flocks of parrakeets flew past toward some tall violet-colored cliffs in the far distance. Bands of dark blue began to spread above the horizon. The shadows of the two men lengthened down to the water’s edge.

“I belong to one of the families,” Gauna began, “who have most right to own land in Argentina. I am a Gauna Alvear. Does that surprise you? Vast, immeasurable estates, cattle as plentiful as the blades of grass they eat, salt meat factories, accounts in English banks, and even a decisive political role — all of this should be mine by right, were it not for the fact that unfortunate family complications have prevented it becoming a reality. That is why you have come to know me in this ragged guise of a gaucho exposed to the hazards of a tracker’s life. The entire branch of the Gauna Alvear family I belong to — the richest one — has been affected by illegitimate births. None of my grandfather’s three daughters were married; all of them had children. Throughout my childhood I thought I was the only son of a devout, melancholy woman. But this was not the case: another offspring, female this time, the fruit of as fleeting a relation of my mother’s as I myself was, had come into the world. In her case though, her father — an adventurer — had not only recognized her, but had taken her with him. It was only as an adult that I learned of the return of this half-sister of mine. She had even for a brief while been in Buenos Aires, before setting off for the interior, where she had created a very curious position for herself. A great beauty, she had seduced many idle indigenous leaders, and ended up married, apparently against her will and in payment for her dissipated life, to a chieftain called Rondeau. .”

“The Widow!” Clarke exclaimed, unable to believe his ears.

“That’s right, the Widow. At least, that’s what I’ve deduced. I’ve never actually seen her, nor found out anything concrete about her. A few garbled words my mother said as she lay dying have allowed me to reconstruct the story. My aunts died at almost the same time — all of them, including my mother, the victims of a strangely simultaneous (and highly suspicious) illness. It was then, around the time of Rondeau’s death at the hands of Cafulcurá (a death which no one will convince me was not due to some act of treachery by my half-sister) that the Widow’s representatives became extremely active in Buenos Aires. The claims on the inheritance, which had been undivided during my grandfather’s lifetime, became more strident. Of course, no one person could claim legitimacy against the others. This was the chance that snake in the grass De Angelis had been waiting for — perhaps inspired by dialectic effusions emanating from Salinas Grandes. He it was who gave Rosas the idea of enjoying the usufruct of all the possessions of my grandfather, General Aristóbulo de Gauna Alvear, while our quarrels went on — perhaps for ever. You should also know that we descend in direct line, albeit a collateral one, from the Hapsburgs, and one royal legacy has continued to figure in all our family’s papers: a large diamond, unique in the world due to its elongated form and the highly unusual way it was cut. Tradition had it that the diamond was handed down by the distaff side, but our logical tendency toward endogamy meant it had more or less stayed in the family, at least until the generation prior to mine. But my grandmother, its last legal owner, died before the eldest of her daughters had reached the age of fifteen, the date established for handing down the stone. Supposedly, presumably at least, it was my grandfather who handed it to his eldest daughter when she reached fifteen, but here comes yet another strange mystery: nobody ever knew which of the three sisters, my mother or the other two, was the eldest. Apparently there were exactly ten months between each of them, and since their mother had raised them hidden away in the nursery of one of our old patriarchal mansions, nobody could say which was which: they themselves must have known, I’m sure, but they never said a word. Did my grandfather know? He never made any comment either, and he was such a drunk and crazy old man that no one would have believed him anyway. The fact is that he died, and they, I am sorry to say, after living lives of easy virtue in their youth, turned into sanctimonious old maids. When they died there was no sign of the jewel. Everyone thought our grandfather must have given it to one of them, even if he had chosen at random. But that wasn’t the case. I should clarify one other small point: as a result of their amorous adventures, the sisters had given birth only to boys, with the exception, discovered much later, of my half-sister: the now infamous Widow. Are you following my drift?”

“I’m following it perfectly. Although, if this were a novel, I’d take the trouble to reread that last paragraph as carefully as possible. So, we’d reached the point where Rosas. .”

“Rosas, or rather that reptile of an Italian who advises him, used the fact that the legal inventory was incomplete because of the gap left by the diamond, to declare the inheritance proceedings frozen. It’s a common trick among us. What they were after in this case was to suspend matters until they could produce one of the female relatives with the diamond in her possession, so they could negotiate with her ways to divide up half the province of Buenos Aires between them. That’s all the facts for you. The rest is easy enough to guess.”

“I assure you it’s not so easy for me. Couldn’t you give me a helping hand?”

“It seems to me obvious that the jewel has been in the possession of the Indians all these years. It was just what they needed to extort any number of advantageous treaties from that monster of Palermo. When you appeared, the time for the great sleight of hand was ripe; and you were as good an instrument as any to set the whole thing in motion. Why else would Rosas have lent you his best horse? Repetido was the password that you innocently took with you to Salinas Grandes. Once you were there, while they were putting on a great show of pretense, things became more complicated. I have no way of knowing for sure what actually happened, but I have my suspicions. It’s likely there were arguments in the court about handing over the diamond, especially from the faction supporting Juana Pitiley. Leaving themselves without the stone could bring down Rosas’s greed on their heads, and perhaps even speed their own extermination (even though they must be getting a sizeable cut from the deal over the inheritance). If you remember, we saw, or almost saw, the supposed flight of a ‘hare.’ Well, the shape of the diamond precisely recalls that of a hare. As for the ‘legibrarian’ part of it, which I must confess was a surprise to me, it can be explained by the legend of its extraordinary shape. It was cut by an unknown Jew in Amsterdam on the orders of Emperor Charles the Fifth, to fit into Erasmus’s right superciliary arch so that he could use it as a monocle to overcome his astigmatism, for him to be able to ‘read,’ ‘read’ the ‘legible,’ if you follow me: a gift from the Emperor which was never sent as a result of the philosopher’s death.”

“Very original. So according to you, up in Salinas Grandes someone stole the stone?”

“Or faked stealing it.”

“What about Cafulcurá’s disappearance?”

“I haven’t managed to find an explanation for that yet, but you won’t deny it’s linked.”

“There are important holes in your story, Mister Gauna.”

“What’s important aren’t the holes, but what remains. If you look closely, it’s all holes, but the evidence to cover them is there. You must have heard that the Widow is preparing to move on. They say it’s to the Andes, but I have the feeling it’s to somewhere else: once she’s got her hands on the ill-gotten gains, she won’t stop until she’s reached Paris. And today I heard she’s preparing to celebrate the fifteenth birthday of someone who is supposed to be her daughter. . ”

“Yes, that’s what Coliqueo told me.”

“What he won’t have told you is that when she came through here she tried all she could to buy any fifteen-year-old girl available. . that can only mean that things have got out of control and she wasn’t ready for the playacting. What I don’t know is where. . But she didn’t take any girl from here, because Coliqueo refused to sell her one — not out of principle, of course, but to force her to stop somewhere else to find one, so that he could gain time. I’m sure that lunatic has also smelled something odd going on, and is trying to find out what it is. That’s why I think we should follow her traces now while we’re so close to her. . ”

“It seems to me that you’re using the plural a little too lightly, Mister Gauna. What has your family quarrel got to do with me?”

“But my ‘family quarrel’ is what it’s all about! All the rest is simply idle chatter! Do you want the hare? Do you want Cafulcurá?”

“I’m not. . convinced.”

“Well then, just listen. There’s more. My half-sister, the Widow, is in fact. .”

At that moment a deafening noise cut their conversation short. Night had fallen while they were talking, and the Indians had lit their bonfires. There were so many of them, and they were so close together because of the confused huddle of the tents, that the whole camp was lit up like a city. In fact, the profusion of bonfires had brought forward nightfall artificially, and it was not yet completely dark. The sky still gave off a viscous glimmer of light, which made the intervals between each fire a dull gray rather than black. Even the distances floated, mysteriously visible, a while longer.

The shouting was coming from all around them. Clarke, who was always startled by the least little thing, leapt up, his head spinning like a top. Gauna understood what was going on before he did:

“An attack!” he shouted.

And indeed a surprise attack was taking place. A disheveled rider passed close by them, along the top of the riverbank. He was the typical Indian warrior: spear in one hand, stone bolas whirling in the other, his naked body covered in grease, hair streaming in the wind, his face contorted in a ferocious war-cry, his mount galloping flat out under him, plunging forward without reins. The horse’s features were a picture of pure terror. The two men stood paralyzed at the sight, but it was gone in a flash. Fortunately the warrior had not spotted them, but it might be very different with the next one (leaving aside the fact, unimportant as ever in the darkness, that they had nothing whatever to do with what was going on). They rushed to find shelter. As he ran, Clarke looked back and saw other attackers streaming past at the speed of imaginary blinkings of an eye. They were charging along the same path, which must have been chosen by the enemy strategist as one of the lines of attack on the camp. From their new vantage point, he and Gauna could see the upheaval going on there, where only a few moments before the Indians had been peacefully awaiting the arrival of night. The camp was a seething mass of writhing bodies: hideous-looking centaurs launched themselves on howling groups of women; men stood stock still in the center of deadly circles of stone bolas, whose dreadful whirring could be heard even above all the uproar; leaders gesticulated, hoarse from shouting orders into empty air; bodies jerked upright until they reached the height to have their throats cut; children and dogs scrambled desperately amid the horses’ hooves; even the hens were trying in vain to take to the air in fizzing gaggles. And the campfires were reflected in a thousand moving dots, in the sinews of every muscle: the Indians of the camp may have been surprised without their weapons, but not without their body grease — in this at least they were equal to their attackers. A wave of Indians swept out of the camp, then swept back almost at once on horseback.

The lack of space became increasingly evident: tents were knocked down by the flailing horses like houses of cards. The top of the bank on the far side of the river was clear, and the two white men at first thought they could take refuge there. But even as they looked, it filled with a motley gang of horsemen. The bank where they had originally been sitting was now empty, but there seemed no point going back there: their troop of horses had dispersed at the start of the raid. There was no escape. The band of marauders on the far bank charged down, shouting wildly, and Clarke and Gauna were alarmed to realize that they were the target. Clarke ran like the wind back to their things, and felt among the shadowy bundles for his shotgun and a bag of bullets. As he turned again, he saw the silhouette of a savage on the point of spearing Gauna. Clarke shot him and he fell from his horse. The other Indians charged on through a gap between two ridges, heading for the tents. Gauna waited for Clarke to catch him up.

“Are you all right?”

“Never better,” said the gaucho, wheezing like a duck.

“What a disaster,” Clarke exclaimed, gazing at the camp of Agramante that the Indian village had become. Everywhere, bodies had become fountains of blood, which darkened the darkness. Some of the bodies had fallen on to fires, and the stench of charred flesh added another dimension of horror to the scene.

Unfortunately for them, the battle flowed back toward them. A fierce combat was going on behind them. Clarke raised his shotgun and downed two Indians. He ran with Gauna until they were protected by tents. Then they were dragged by a mob of wailing, crazy women toward the very center of the fighting. The most dangerous thing were the bullets which, as usual with the Indians, were fired off at random. More than once they felt them buzz too close to their heads for comfort, like tiny nocturnal bees. All of a sudden, the two men became separated. It seemed as if successive moments of time were all being thrown together: there were women bending over wounded Indians to give them water, while a few steps away, another Indian was climbing on to a bloodstained horse and loosening his bolas. . Clarke wondered how on earth he had started out on the outside of the camp, and finished in the center, right where the fighting was at its height. The dust raised by the charging horses had mixed with the smoke from the burning tents to create a thick, impenetrable fog. Everywhere, people trod on dead bodies. Clarke had no time to worry about anything but himself; he tried to avoid any dangerous encounter, and ran first in one direction and then another, until he was completely disoriented. Even so, to his amazement, he still found himself in the thick of the combat, but his dodging kept him out of the way of the hand-to-hand fighting, and he did not have to fire any more shots, despite often being on the point of doing so. Horribly overexpressive horseheads kept looming through the walls of dust and smoke. The Indians’ war-cries constantly echoed through the confusion. Suddenly a rush of people carried him away with them. They plunged through the ruins of several tents, and just as he was trying to jump over the bodies of some wounded Indians, Clarke was astonished to hear. . laughter. There was something very familiar about it, and from the mist in front of him he soon saw emerge the figure of Carlos Alzaga Prior, together with a group of young Indians of both sexes.

“Clarke, I was so worried about you!”

“Throw that cigarette away!”

The Englishman’s indignation exploded like a storm within a storm. He went up to the youth, seized his arm with his left hand (he was still clutching his shotgun in the other) and shook him, all the while dragging him away from the others. Carlos had a lighted cigarette between his fingers.

“How irresponsible, how thoughtless of you!” Clarke was choking with fury, and had to shout at the top of his lungs to make himself heard.

Carlos shook himself free. He wasn’t very lucid. The bleary smile did not leave his face even when it was his turn to shout:

“Leave me in peace! You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Come here!” Beside himself, Clarke raised the gun as though he were about to shoot.

Then something extraordinary happened: a horse that may or may not have had a rider (they didn’t see one) galloped between them. Clarke was stunned, but Carlos carried on as if nothing had happened.

“Have a puff,” he said, holding the cigarette out to Clarke between his thumb and his middle finger.

“No thanks,” Clarke shouted, his voice shrill with nerves. He snatched the cigarette, threw it onto the ground, and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot in a rough, vengeful way. Carlos chose to give a dismissive laugh, as if to say: “who cares, I’ve smoked enough anyway.” Clarke was on the point of slapping his face, when something else happened that prevented him doing so: a rush of air only inches from the back of his head as a stone bola crashed by. Clarke threw himself down just in time: the second bola cleaved the air where his head had been. “I would have slapped his face with my gray matter if I hadn’t ducked,” he thought. For the past few minutes, his adrenalin had been pumping. He was thirsty for blood. And more than the scandalous behavior of his young companion, it was something else, something unknown that was awakening in him. He raised his eyes and the shotgun at the same time. An Indian who, with his hair streaming out and his arms waving, looked like a woman, was bending from his horse to finish him off. Clarke fired without taking aim. The bullet struck the Indian full in the belly and lifted him into the air; they saw him do a somersault and land in a sitting position, his tongue lolling out. He was dead. Carlos had already set off running; Clarke followed him.

They came to a halt in a relatively dark spot from which they could look down on most of the battle. They decided to sit on the ground, in order to offer less of a target to any stray bullet.

“It’s incredible!”

“It’s barbaric!”

“They’re Indians from Salinas Grandes,” Carlos said. “I suppose you recognized them?”

So this was their everlasting peace as the fury that had gripped him subsided. Clarke was slowly returning to his normal self.

“I don’t know how I could have shot that poor unfortunate. .”

“But it was in self-defense!”

“You’re right. At least we escaped.”

“Don’t be too sure. . ”

“By the way. . what happened to Gauna?”

“I saw him go by on a horse a while ago. A horse he must have stolen from a dead man.”

Clarke sighed, slightly ashamed of himself and the irresponsible adolescent by his side.

“I’m sure by now he’s rounding up our horses. I hope he finds Repetido, or Rosas will give me hell. Gauna’s a sensible person.”

“He’s a pillar of strength.”

“Don’t mock. I need to have a serious talk with you.”

“Just look at that! Have they gone mad?”

Clarke looked — not very far, because the clouds of dust added to the darkness of the night and the way his pupils had contracted during his dangerous foray among the fires meant that he could see nothing beyond about twelve yards. Even so, he could make out a line of Indians riding past at walking pace, heading for the center of the camp, obviously on a mission of peace. Although at first it seemed like a hallucination, when Indians from the village came to a halt and stared at the newcomers, they realized it wasn’t. The two of them also went to see what it was all about. When the peace ambassadors reached the center of the encampment, a remarkable scene took place: another procession, just as formal and orderly as theirs, with Coliqueo at its head, came to greet them. Fighting was going on all around, but they were at the center of a zone of quiet. Even the dust settled, so that the bonfires began to throw a fantastic half-light on the meeting. The effect was the same as Clarke had noticed earlier, that of disconnected fragments of time being superimposed on each other, as though war disrupted the normal chain of events. Carlos, who was an expert at recognizing people, whispered to Clarke that some of the chief shamans from Salinas Grandes were among the new arrivals. Apparently there were to be peace talks there and then. The two of them pushed their way to the front row of onlookers, from where they could hear the speeches. A Huilliche who had crossed his eyes elaborately was the first to speak. Without dismounting, of course. With no sign of urgency, he embarked upon a complicated explanation of the state of mind of thirty-one of Cafulcurá’s thirty-two wives. Summing up a speech which lasted a good three-quarters of an hour, it boiled down to the following: these desperate wives had financed a punitive expedition, which was bitterly opposed by the ruling council, who had ordered the dispatch of a simultaneous embassy, comprising the speaker and his companions, to beg forgiveness in order to restore the peace so heedlessly put at risk, etcetera. If the two groups had not arrived at their destination at the same time, this was due to the fact that the second one was distracted by the sighting of a lone rider in the distance. . then followed a highly complicated geometric-topographical argument, incomprehensible from the outset without a diagram, but in which Clarke discovered certain similarities to ideas he himself had formulated concerning the “wanderer,” whom he had no doubt was one and the same person. Coliqueo listened to all this impassively. After the speaker fell silent, there was a short pause, in which more shots and cries could be heard in the distance, then in what seemed like a prepared speech, Coliqueo declared his acceptance of their apologies. The acceptance of this acceptance would doubtless give rise to yet another speech, but Clarke was in no mood to stay and hear it. He gestured to Carlos, and they pushed their way back through the enthralled throng.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Carlos in a stage whisper.

“Do you think that’s wise?”

Riders were still coming and going inside and beyond the razed village. A number of terrified cows had strayed into the camp. There were loose horses everywhere, some of them lying prostrate, but where could theirs be? Clarke was prepared to mount any of them, provided they made their escape. He cocked his gun and led the way to where they had slept. Fortunately, they did not stumble onto any lingering combat. When they were halfway to the river, Gauna appeared, leading two horses that were as unknown to them as the one he was riding.

“Mount up,” he said.

“Did you find Repetido?” was the Englishman’s first question.

“Don’t worry, he was the only one I looked for.”

And indeed there he was, with a faint phosphorescent glow to him, his flanks trembling. . together with ten other ponies at least as good as the ones they had lost. They were already loaded with their things, hurriedly girthed, but ready to leave nonetheless. Gauna had wasted no time, once he had spied the chance to get his own way and make off after the Widow. Clarke did not have the heart to reproach him for it. The best thing for all of them was to get away. He would make an exception, and leave without saying goodbye. They rounded up their troop without dismounting, and within a few seconds were fleeing across open country. When they looked back, the encampment was a mass of glowing smoke, crisscrossed by bullets, spears, and speeches. They said nothing, although they could all have admitted: “this time we escaped by the skin of our teeth”; but it was difficult to speak at full gallop. They soon lost sight of the scene of battle. A welcome silence greeted them. For two hours, they traveled through the night, lit only by a pale moon. Even as they fled, Clarke still felt time had no meaning, because he had witnessed a drama of simultaneity that seeped in everywhere. Might they not be fleeing before the massacre had started? If that were so, they would soon find themselves in the thick of it, killing and dying — though not necessarily in that order. However, the ride cleared the cobwebs from his mind. They changed once to fresh horses (Clarke leapt on to Repetido’s familiar back) so that they could continue for another couple of hours.

The moon traced a wide arc in the sky before disappearing behind increasingly dense mists. Above and below gradually became indistinguishable in the fog. It was only when they came to a halt that they realized how invisible everything had become. To go on would be suicide, because sooner or later one of the horses would fall into a gopher hole. And above all, they ran the risk of getting lost and heading back the way they had come. That was what decided them. They carried on a short while, more from inertia than anything else, and were surprised to find that they were on the bottom slopes of a range of hills. Some natural walls forced them to change direction, and there and then, they dismounted. They were so exhausted they scarcely had the strength to lay out their gear and wrap themselves in their ponchos. It was so damp, thought Clarke, that all his bones would he aching the next day. But there was no point in lighting a fire; because it was not cold. Nor had they eaten. So what? A leaden sleep forced his eyes shut.