Juan José Saer - La Grande

— Are you coming on Sunday? Gutiérrez says, signaling, indirectly, their imminent departure.

— I have to think about it, Escalante says.

— If it’s because of your missing teeth, Gutiérrez says — bringing his hand to his mouth and removing a set of dentures from the bottom row and leaving a gap in the middle of his bottom lip — I too can reveal my true face to the world.

Escalante’s own face, impassive up until that moment, has become unstable, covered in folds, creases, and wrinkles, on his forehead, around his eyes and mouth, as though he were making a tremendous effort to hide an emotion, and he darkens slightly, possibly because his skin is so lustrous and dark that the blood that flows to his cheeks can’t quite turn them red. Finally, the creases on his face disappear and Escalante is able to smile, and when his hand, his fingers curled, starts to move toward his mouth, he notices the gesture and stops it at his waist, hooking his thumb between his belt and the waistline of his pants. Nula, languidly chewing his peanuts, slows the movement of his jaws until they stop completely and his mouth is left half open as he stares at the other men, as the barman does, and who does so with an expression that combines surprise and uneasiness and even anger. Gutiérrez, with a gesture that vaguely resembles a magician or a variety show host, and which consists of holding the dentures aloft for the public, has also fallen still, displaying the false teeth mounted on a bridge of pink substance that resembles the color of his gums, and ends with two metal hooks that must attach to the actual teeth, and when he returns Escalante’s smile, his lower lip, sunken into the hole that has opened in the middle of his face, folds and collapses into his mouth, disfiguring the countenance that Nula, over the course of their three meetings, had started to get used to. Slightly agitated, Nula thinks, And I thought he walked in here that way out of arrogance .

— Alright, fine, Escalante says. Maybe you convinced me. Maybe I’ll come.

While Nula thinks, What strange people , Gutiérrez, narrowing his eyes and rolling his pupils backward, reinserts the teeth and stops a few seconds to install them, tapping his upper row against the lower one to make sure they’re in place.

— Chacho, Escalante says to the barman. Do we have anything our friends could take back with them?

— Let me see if there’s anything in the fridge, the man named Chacho says.

— No, Escalante says. I meant in the water.

Escalante’s preference immediately generates a certain regard in Chacho for the visitors — somewhat diminished by the scene he’s just witnessed — and a resigned smile decorates the ambivalent manner with which he gazes, through the doorway that leads to the sidewalk, at the slanting rainfall that crosses the light against the dark backdrop of the night.

— I have a couple of catfish, he says. They’re the first of the year.

— So they don’t leave empty-handed, Escalante says.

A childish, intensely joyful look appears on Gutiérrez’s face, which the barman notes with a spark of satisfaction and possibly even malice, and Nula, without hesitating, attributes the look to some idealized image of the local color that, during his years away, Gutiérrez had hoped to recover, and which, at this moment, by some unexpected and benevolent concession granted by the external world, is now really real. Chacho disappears into the back of the building, through a doorway next to the fridge.

— Don’t walk past the dump this late, Escalante says. You’ll be slaughtered and eaten up.

— Where oppression reigns, its victims are always suspect, Gutiérrez says.

— They came forth for no good reason, and now they squirm around like a bunch of larvae, Escalante says, and, with a hoarse laugh, adds, Just like the rest of us.

— Yet we claim to embody something more elevated, Gutiérrez says. Power, knowledge, wealth, tradition, and, worst of all, virtue.

— Larvae that pontificate, buy cars, and drink fine wine, Nula says, rubbing his hands together. My golden goose.

Chacho reappears in the opening that leads to the other room: he’s now wearing a burlap sack shaped into a sort of cloak over his shoulders; he carries an enormous flashlight in one hand and a knife in the other.

— Do you know where it is? Gutiérrez says.

— Doctor Russo’s place? Escalante says. I once brought charges on behalf of two or three poor bastards who lost everything they had because of him.

— See you Sunday, Gutiérrez says.

They tap each other on the arm and Escalante nods at Nula, a kind of economical greeting that is also a gesture of approval, as though, despite having exchanged only two or three conventional words with him, he were granting him something resembling a certificate of approval. Chacho comes around the bar, and his corpulence, while surprisingly greater than it seemed at first, contrasts with the energy and even agility with which he moves. Gutiérrez and Nula follow him, but Gutiérrez takes a couple of hesitant steps and then stops, turning back toward Escalante.

— I’ll have you know, he says, that when a European pauses thoughtfully, pencil in hand, it’s because he’s doing a crossword puzzle.

— I imagined as much, Escalante says, without stopping, and practically without looking at him, as he turns back toward the table of card players, and Nula thinks, again, but with a shade of irony this time, What strange people .

They step out into the rainy night, and, under the entrance sign, Gutiérrez once again unfolds the multicolored umbrella, but Chacho is moving so quickly that he has to stop and wait, realizing that the others have been delayed by a couple of seconds. As soon as they leave the swath of light that projects over the sidewalk, Chacho turns on the flashlight and an intense white beam shines over the sandy ground, the uneven brick sidewalks, and the saturated weeds that border the street. On the next corner, as they cross the illuminated intersection, Chacho turns off the flashlight, but after only a few meters he turns it on again. They pass the last of the street lights, and the tall silhouettes of darkened trees ahead appear to block their path, but it wouldn’t make sense to say that the trees interrupt the road: just like when they came into town from the north, the sidewalks and the street are now level, separated only by a ragged strip of weeds that reflects fragments of the white flashlight beam, and, strictly speaking, it’s already hard to tell them apart and there doesn’t seem to be either a street or a sidewalk anymore. In reality they now walk down what, had there been one, could have been considered the middle of the street. Seeing Chacho covered in the sack, Nula feels a bit ridiculous under the small, multicolored umbrella, his left arm constantly rubbing against Gutiérrez’s right elbow, elevated because he’s holding the umbrella in his right hand, making their walk so difficult that Chacho, just ahead of them, has to stop every so often to wait, but the rain, fine and silent, is too heavy to face unprotected. When they reach the trees that darken the path, Chacho leads them to the right, onto an embankment that is somewhat more slippery and wet than the rain-tamped, sandy street.

— This is clay through here, Chacho warns them, and slows down a bit. Nula and Gutiérrez move cautiously, feeling the wet mud against the soles of their shoes, squeaking under Gutiérrez’s now hesitant boots. The flashlight beam, projecting over the earth, reveals a brilliant, glistening circle of reddish mud. After walking some fifty meters over the embankment, noisily and with a few slips and hasty acrobatics, and crossing a scrub, they come out on another sandy road. To one side stands a large, whitewashed ranch, a light shining through a small window, and, to the other, they can sense the splashing and unmistakable smell of the river. A sudden watery upheaval betrays the rise and immediate submergence of a large fish. Chacho probably hasn’t even heard it, and though Nula and Gutiérrez are both familiar with the sound, it produces, because they don’t often hear it, a sense of pleasure.