Juan José Saer - La Grande

— Wonderful, he says, and kisses Diana on the cheek. But what actually attracts his attention just now is the racket coming from the pool, and so, moving away from the group — he and Diana will talk about the sketches tonight when they look at them — he walks up to the edge of the water: Riera and Violeta are playing with a multicolored ball, standing on opposite sides of the shallow end, throwing it back in forth and trying to keep the other one from catching it. It’s immediately obvious that Riera is dominating the game, and that rather than giving Violeta an advantage he’s happy to beat her ostentatiously, which makes her laugh and protest simultaneously, as if that minor vexation caused her a degree of pleasure.

— Sadist victimizer! Nula yells to Riera, who still hasn’t seen him.

— And if she likes it? Riera says, and because he turns around to say this, Violeta takes the opportunity to throw the ball at his head with an impotent fury that causes the multicolored sphere to drop halfway along its trajectory, in the middle of the pool.

— I forfeit, she says, and with heavy steps, intended to overcome the resistance of the water, she moves toward the metal ladder and starts to climb up. Riera makes a sudden lunge and, before Violeta has finished climbing, steps up onto the edge of the pool, splashing Nula’s naked legs. The multicolored ball continues floating on the water, rocking violently, but always at the same point on the surface of the water. Riera sits on the edge of the pool, shaking his head to dry the water from his thick, soaking wet, chestnut hair.

— So she declared you persona non grata, Nula says.

— Yes, and since you’ve seen the house you’ll know that it’s not like there isn’t plenty of room, Riera says.

Nula decides not to register the allusion, opting instead for mocking laughter. And then: You’ll see that everything will work out.

— It practically is already worked out, Riera says with unusual severity.

Violeta approaches them along the edge of the pool.

— I’ve had my share of aquatic pleasures for the day, she says, insinuating that Riera’s behavior has spoiled them, but apparently happy that this has happened. She continues toward the group talking between the pool and the house. Riera sees the cell phone in Nula’s hand.

— Were you about to call someone? I can disappear, if you want, he says.

— It doesn’t matter; I don’t have a private life anymore, Nula says. Ignoring the effect that his sibylline words have caused, he studies, curious, without anxiety, the trees at the back: there seems to be a faint undulation among the highest branches. It’s coming, the storm , he says, even more ostentatiously disinterested in the mocking, complicit smile that Riera is giving him. It’s difficult to tell how much Riera knows about his visit to Paraná, and though he knows that Riera would tell him immediately and that if he doesn’t do so now it’s because it’s not the right time, he has no desire to reenter their aura, like five years before, when, as he was coming out of the bar, he bumped into the girl in red and started to follow her. The magnetic aura that surrounded them, more luminous and vivid than his own life, confronted with the bitter roughness of possession, during the Wednesday siesta, has dissipated. Nula thinks that, if he wanted to, he could be the one to arrange events according to his fantasies, although he owes them too much to want to do that. But a thunderclap, much closer than the previous ones, pulls him from his thoughts. The thunder causes Riera to look up as well and scan the peaceful blue sky, in which not the slightest sign of a storm is visible. Nula puts the cell phone in the straw bag, under the pavilion, and then takes the umbrella out of the base, folds it, can leans it up against the wall, under the pavilion, near the grill. Then he returns to the edge of the pool, from which Riera watches him, intrigued, and starts folding up the lawn chairs. Riera stands up and does the same with the ones around him and then follows Nula submissively as he leans the ones he’s already folded against the wall of the pavilion, next to the umbrella, to protect them from the rain. When they’ve put away the last of them they walk out of the pavilion and toward the others, who continue talking, apparently unaware of them, in the middle of the courtyard. When the second thunderclap rumbles, Diana closes the sketch pad and puts it carefully in the straw bag. Now everyone is scanning the sky, and though they don’t see anything in it that indicates a storm, they all see the momentary flash of a lightning bolt and notice that the tall trees on the sidewalk are starting to shake, just as the white bars of the gate open for Gutiérrez, who, after closing it, moves toward them at a run, but in slow motion, pointing up and back, as if he was being chased. His guests watch him, amused but also somewhat surprised because they wouldn’t have expected, from him, the kind of parodic behavior that diminishes his mystery and reduces him to the banality of every other mortal. Only Nula and Tomatis intuit, though still vaguely, that this is also a reconstitution, the playing out of something lost that he’s not actually trying to recover but that he stages, purely as an intimate game, in the theater of his disenchanted imagination. When he reaches the middle of the courtyard, a heavy thunderclap makes the house, the pavilion, the trees, and the earth vibrate, disturbing the blue water in the pool, and suddenly the light turns livid and the air darkens.

— Right here, right here! Tomatis shouts, pounding his chest, standing at the edge of the pool, looking toward the darkened sky, and speaking to the endless series of long lightning strikes and the deafening, continuous thunder that, for a while now, has been shaking everything, creating a tremor in the rainy shadow of the evening. And then: If you exist, swine, hit me right here! I’m defying you! I’m talking to you, coward!

— Don’t pay any attention to him, he’s quoting Flaubert again, Violeta says to the group, which is surprised by Tomatis’s suddenly theatrical behavior, jumping from the table at the edge of the pavilion and berating the turbulent sky.

At that moment, Tomatis stops yelling and returns to the table, calmly, with a satisfied smile.

— You see? he says. He doesn’t exist. And picking up his glass of whiskey, he shakes it a moment, clinking the ice against the glass, and takes a long drink.

— Either he doesn’t exist or he’s gone deaf, Marcos offers sententiously.

A dense, loud rain has been falling continuously for a while now, multiplying its intensity with every volley of thunder and lightning. The southeast wind brought with it a thick curtain of black clouds that completely obscured the sky along the entire visible horizon, and though by now the wind had calmed down considerably, or perhaps for that same reason, the storm had settled in, dumping endless, thick streams of water, pierced constantly with electricity and noise, over the evening. Gutiérrez suggested that they move indoors, but his guests preferred the pavilion, which protected them from the rain while at the same time allowing them to enjoy the delicious coolness of the air after the sweltering afternoon. Assisted by Nula and Violeta, Gutiérrez prepared the table and served them the cold leftovers from the cookout, bread and butter, and a few bottles of red wine. So that she wouldn’t have to put the prosthesis on her arm again, Nula prepared chorizo and steak sandwiches for Diana, or put pieces onto a dish from which they both ate. Eventually, Gutiérrez announced that Amalia had made a cake that she hadn’t dared serve after the alfajores , and which she’d left for that night. Violeta brought it out — Nula took care of the plates and the dessert utensils — and Gutiérrez appeared last with a large ice bucket that, when he brought them out, fit two bottles of French champagne very well. They made their trips to and from the house at a run, forced to cover the food, and the cake in particular, with white napkins, but they themselves arrived soaked, though this didn’t seem to bother them much, just the opposite: judging by their happy laughter when they arrived, the euphoria with which they distributed the food and the bottles, they seemed to be enjoying themselves, thanks to the effects of the wine, which had been partially spent over the hot afternoon. After the first glass of champagne, when Gutiérrez moved to serve him a second, Tomatis put his hand between the mouth of the bottle and the top of the glass and asked: