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  “Calm down, kid,” said El Gurre.

  But Tito wouldn’t stop, he began shouting louder and louder, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?, shaking El Gurre like a puppet, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?, until Salinas, too, began shouting, STOP IT, KID, they were like three madmen, abandoned on a dark stage: CUT IT OUT!

  34

  The stage of a theater in ruins.

  Finally they dragged Tito away by force. The glare of the fire lighted up the night. They crossed a field and went down to the road, following the stream bed. When they came in sight of the old Mercedes, El Gurre put a hand on Tito’s shoulder and said to him softly that he had done a fine job, and that it was all over now. But Tito wouldn’t stop repeating the words over and over.

  He didn’t shout. He spoke softly, in a child’s voice. What the hell have we done. What the hell have we done. What the hell have we done.

  The old farmhouse of Mato Rujo stood blankly in the countryside, carved in red flame against the dark night. The only stain in the empty outline of the plain.

  Three days later a man arrived, on horseback, at the farmhouse of Mato Rujo. He was filthy, dressed in rags. The horse was an old nag, skin and bones. It had something in its eyes, a yellow liquid that dripped down its muzzle, and the flies buzzed around it.

  The man saw the walls of the farmhouse standing blackened 35

  and useless, coals in the middle of an enormous quenched brazier. They were like the last remaining teeth in the mouth of an old man. The fire had also consumed a large oak that for years had shaded the house. Like a black claw, it stank of calamity.

  The man stayed in the saddle. He made a slow half-circle around the farm. He went to the well and without getting off the horse unhooked the bucket and let it fall. He heard the slap of metal on water. He looked over at the farmhouse. He saw that sitting on the ground, leaning against what remained of a wall, there was a child. She was staring at him, two motionless eyes shining in a smoke-grimed face. She was wearing a short red skirt. She had scratches all over. Or wounds.

  The man pulled up the bucket from the well. The water was blackish. He stirred it with a tin dipper, but the blackness remained. He refilled the dipper, brought it to his lips, and took a long drink. He looked again into the water in the bucket. He spit into it. Then he set everything on the edge of the well and pressed his heels into the belly of the horse.

  He went over to the child. She raised her head to look at him.

  36

  She seemed to have nothing to say. The man studied her for a while. Eyes, lips, hair. Then he held out a hand. She stood, grabbed the man’s hand, and lifted herself up to the saddle, behind him. The old nag adjusted its hooves to the new weight. It tossed its head, twice. The man made a strange noise, and the horse calmed down.

  As they rode away from the farmhouse, at a slow trot, under a fierce sun, the girl let her head fall forward and, with her forehead against the man’s sweaty back, slept.

  37

  T w o

  The signal changed to green and the woman crossed the street. She looked down as she walked, because it had just stopped raining and in the hollows of the asphalt there were puddles that reminded one of the sudden rain of early spring. She had an elegant gait, confined by the tight black skirt. She saw the puddles and avoided them.

  When she reached the opposite sidewalk she stopped.

  People passed by, crowding the late afternoon with their steps toward home, or freedom. The woman liked to feel the city trickling around her, so she stood for a while, in the middle of the sidewalk, inexplicable, like a woman who had been left there, abruptly, by her lover.

  41

  She decided to turn right, and fell in with the collec-tive promenade. In no hurry, she went along beside the shop windows, holding the shawl over her chest. She walked tall and confident, with a youthful bearing in spite of her age. Her hair was white, gathered at the nape and held by a dark comb, like a girl’s.

  She stopped at the window of an appliance shop, and stood staring at a wall of televisions broadcasting pointless multiplications of a single news commentator. Each was tinted a different color, which fascinated her. A film began of some cities at war and she resumed her walk. She crossed Calle Medina and then the little Plaza del Per-petuo Socorro. When she arrived at the Galería Florencia she turned to look at the prospect of the lights extending in a line through the belly of the building and out the other side, into Avenida 24 de Julio. She stopped. She raised her eyes to look for something on the grand iron archway that marked the entrance. But she found nothing. She took a few steps inside the Galería, then stopped a man. She excused herself, and asked him what the place 42

  was called. The man told her. Then she thanked him and said that he would have a most beautiful evening. The man smiled.

  So she began to walk through the Galería Florencia, and eventually she saw, some twenty yards ahead, a small kiosk that stuck out from the left-hand wall, creasing for a moment the clean profile of the space. It was one of those kiosks where lottery tickets are sold. She continued walking, but when she was a few steps from the kiosk she stopped. She saw that the man who sold the tickets was seated, reading a newspaper. He held it resting on something in front of him, and he was reading it. All the sides of the kiosk were of glass, except the one that was against the wall of the Galería. Within, the ticket man could be seen, and a mass of colored strips hanging down. There was a small window, in front, and that was the opening through which the ticket seller talked to people.

  The woman pulled back a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. She turned and for an instant stood looking 43

  at a girl who came out of a shop pushing a carriage. Then she looked at the kiosk again.

  The ticket seller was reading.

  The woman approached and leaned toward the window.

  “Good evening,” she said.

  The man raised his eyes from the newspaper. He was about to say something, but when he saw the woman’s face he stopped, completely. He remained like that, looking at her.

  “I would like to buy a ticket.”

  The man nodded yes. But then he said something that had nothing at all to do with that.

  “Have you been waiting a long time?”

  “No, why?”

  The man shook his head, continuing to stare at her.

  “Nothing, excuse me,” he said.

  “I’d like a ticket,” she said.

  Then the man turned and stuck his hand up among the strips of tickets hanging behind him.

  44

  The woman pointed to a strip that was longer than the others.

  “That one there . . . can you take it from that strip?”

  “This one?”

  “Yes.”

  The man tore off the ticket. He glanced at the number and nodded approval with his head. He placed it on the wooden counter between him and the woman.

  “It’s a good number.”

  “What did you say?”

  The man didn’t answer because he was looking at the woman’s face, as if he were searching for something.

  “Did you say it’s a good number?”

  The man lowered his gaze to the ticket:

  “Yes, it has two 8’s in a symmetrical position and has equal sums.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you draw a line through the middle of the number, the sum of the figures on the right is the same as those on the left. Generally that’s a good sign.”

  45

  “And how do you know?”

  “It’s my job.”

  The woman smiled.

  “You’re right.”

  She placed her money on the counter.

  “You’re not blind,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  The man began laughing.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “It’s odd . . . ”

  “Why should I be blind?”

  “Well, the people who sell lottery tickets al
ways are.”

  “Really?”

  “Maybe not always, but often . . . I think people like it that they’re blind.”

  “In what sense?”

  “I don’t know, I imagine it has to do with the idea of fortune being blind.”

  The woman spoke and then she began to laugh. She had a nice laugh, with no sign of age in it.

  46

  “Usually they’re very old, and they look around like tropical birds in the window of a pet shop.”

  She said it with great assurance.

  Then she added:

  “You are different.”

  The man said that in fact he was not blind. But he was old.

  “How old are you?” the woman asked.

  “I’m seventy-two,” said the man.

  Then he added:

  “This is a good job for me, I have no problems, it’s a good job.”

  He said it in a low voice. Calmly.

  The woman smiled.

  “Of course. I didn’t mean that . . . ”

  “It’s a job I like.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  She took the ticket and put it in a small black purse.

  Then she turned around for an instant as if she had to check something, or wanted to see if there were people 47

  waiting, behind her. At the end, instead of thanking him and leaving, she spoke.

  “I wonder if you might like to come and have something to drink with me.”

  The man had just put the money into the cash drawer.

  He stopped with his hand in midair.

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I . . . I can’t.”

  The woman looked at him.

  “I have to keep the kiosk open, I can’t go now, I have no one here that . . . I . . . ”

  “Just a glass.”

  “I’m sorry . . . really I can’t do it.”

  The woman nodded yes, as if she had understood. But then she leaned toward the man and said:

  “Come with me.”

  The man said again:

  “Please.”

  But she repeated:

  “Come with me.”

  48

  It was strange. The man folded the newspaper and got off the stool. He removed his glasses. He put them in a gray cloth case. Then, very carefully, he began to close the kiosk. He lined up each gesture with the next, slowly, silently, as if it were an ordinary evening. The woman waited, standing calmly, as if it had nothing to do with her. Every so often someone passed by and turned to look at her. Because she seemed to be alone, and was beautiful.

  Because she was not young, and seemed alone. The man turned off the light. He pulled down the little shutter and fastened it to the ground with a padlock. He put on an overcoat, which was loose on his shoulders. He went over to the woman.

  “I’ve finished.”

  The woman smiled at him.

  “Do you know where we could go?”

  “Over here. There’s a café where one can sit quietly.”

  They went into the café, found a table, in a corner, and sat down across from each other. They ordered two glasses of wine. The woman asked the waiter if he had cigarettes. So 49

  they began to smoke. Then they spoke of ordinary things, and of people who win the lottery. The man said that usu-ally they couldn’t keep the secret, and the funny thing was that the first person they told was always a child. Probably there was a moral in that, but he had never managed to figure out what it was. The woman said something about stories that have a moral and those that don’t. They went on a little like that, talking. Then he said that he knew who she was, and why she had come.

  The woman said nothing. She waited.

  Then the man went on.

  “Many years ago, you saw three men kill your father, in cold blood. I’m the only one of the three who’s still alive.”

  The woman looked at him. But you couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “You came here to find me.”

  He spoke calmly. He wasn’t nervous, not at all.

  “Now you’ve found me.”

  Then they were silent, because he had no more to say, and she said nothing.

  50

  ●

  ●

  ●

  “When I was a child my name was Nina. But everything ended that day. No one called me by that name anymore.”

  “ . . . ”

  “I liked it: Nina.”

  “ . . . ”

  “Now I have many names. It’s different.”

  “In the beginning I remember a sort of orphanage. Nothing else. Then a man whose name was Ricardo Uribe came and took me away with him. He was the pharmacist in a little town deep in the countryside. He had no wife or relatives, nothing. He told everyone that I was his daughter. He had moved there a few months earlier. Everyone believed him. In the daytime I stayed in the rear of the pharmacy. Between customers he taught me. I don’t know why but he didn’t like me to go out alone. What there is to learn you can learn from me, he said. I was eleven. At night he sat on the sofa and made me lie beside him. I rested my head in his lap and listened to him. He told strange stories about the war. His fingers caressed my hair, 51

  back and forth, slowly. I felt his sex, under the material of his pants. Then he kissed my forehead and let me go to sleep. I had a room to myself. I helped him keep the shop clean and the house. I washed and cooked. He seemed a good man. He was afraid, but I don’t know what he was afraid of.”

  “ . . . ”

  “One night he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. He went on kissing me, like that, and meanwhile he stuck his hands under my skirt and everywhere. I did nothing. And then, suddenly, he pulled away from me, and began to cry and ask me to forgive him. He seemed terrified. I didn’t understand. A few days later he said that he had found me a fiancé. A young man from Río Galván, a town nearby. He was a mason. I would marry him as soon as I was old enough. I went to meet him, the following Sunday, in the square. He was a handsome boy, tall and thin, very thin. He moved slowly, maybe he was sick, or something like that. We introduced ourselves, and I went home.”

  52

  “ . . . ”

  “It’s a story like any other. Why do you want to hear it?”

  The man thought the way she spoke was strange. As if it were a gesture that she wasn’t used to. Or as if she were speaking a language that was not her own. As she searched for words she stared into space.

  “A few months later, on a winter evening, Uribe went out to the Riviera, a sort of tavern where the men gambled. He went every week, always the same day, Fri-day. That night he played until very late. Then he found himself with four jacks in his hand, in front of a pot in which there was more money than he would see in a year. The game had come down to him and the Count of Torrelavid. The others had put in a little money and then had let it go. But the Count was stubborn. He kept raising the bet. Uribe was sure of his cards and stayed with him.

  They reached the point where the players lose any sense of reality. And then the Count put in the pot his fazenda 53

  of Belsito. In the tavern everything came to a halt. Do you gamble?”

  “No,” said the man.

  “Then I don’t think you’ll understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “You won’t understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Everything came to a halt. And there was a silence you won’t understand.”

  The woman explained that the fazenda of Belsito was the most beautiful fazenda in that land. An avenue of orange trees led to the house at the top of a hill, and from there, from the house, you could see the ocean.

  “Uribe said that he had nothing to bet that was worth Belsito. And he placed his cards on the table. Then the Count said that he could always bet the pharmacy, and then he began to laugh like a lunatic, and some of those who were there began to laugh with him. Uribe smiled.

  He still had a han
d over his cards. As if to say goodbye to them. The Count became serious again, leaned for-54

  ward, across the table, looked Uribe in the eye, and said to him:

  “ ‘You have a lovely child, though.’

  “Uribe didn’t understand right away. He felt all those eyes upon him, and he couldn’t think. The Count simpli-fied the situation.

  “ ‘Belsito against your daughter, Uribe. It’s an honest offer.’

  “And on the table, right under Uribe’s nose, he placed his five cards, face down.

  “Uribe stared, without touching them.

  “He said something in a whisper, but no one could ever tell me what it was.

  “Then he pushed his cards toward the Count, sliding them across the table.

  “The Count came and got me that same night. He did something unpredictable. He waited sixteen months, and when I was fourteen he married me. I gave him three sons.”

  “ . . . ”

  “Men are difficult to understand. The Count, before 55

  that night, had seen me only once. He was sitting in the café and I was crossing the square. He had asked someone:

  “ ‘Who is that girl?’

  “And they told him.”

  Outside it had started raining again, and the café had filled up. One had to speak loudly to be understood. Or sit closer. The man said to the woman that she had an odd way of talking: she seemed to be telling the story of someone else’s life.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s as if nothing matters to you.”

  The woman said that, on the contrary, everything mat -

  tered to her, too much. She said that she felt nostalgic for every single thing that had happened to her. But she said it in a hard voice, without melancholy. Then the man was silent, looking at the people around them.

  He thought of Salinas. He had been found dead in his bed one morning, two years after that business of Roca.

  Something with his heart, they said. Then a rumor came 56

  out that his doctor had poisoned him, a little every day, slowly, for months. A slow agony. Horrifying. The matter was investigated but nothing came of it. The doctor’s name was Astarte. He had made a little money, during the war, with a preparation that cured fevers and infections.

  He had invented it himself, with the help of a pharmacist.