Juan José Saer - La Grande

The arrival of Tomatis and Violeta finds the three of them in the water. It’s around noon, and Faustino has already lit the fire; with his back to everyone, he busies himself with it. Tomatis shakes a bag from the hypermarket (the W emblazoned on it is red), and shouts, with tremendous satisfaction, even before saying hello, This is for after lunch! but instead of revealing the contents of the bag, wraps it around the object it contains, apparently a rectangular box.

— Does it go in the fridge? Gutiérrez says, coming out of the water, intrigued.

— Not at all, Tomatis says. But somewhere cool and humid, yes. How’s it going? What a beautiful morning, no?

Violeta arrives behind him, waving silently. Clara and Marcos come out of the pool and, following Gutiérrez, walk across the grass, against which the midday sun falls steeply, to meet them. They exchange greetings and observations but they don’t touch because Violeta and Tomatis maintain a comfortable distance from the three dripping water. Suddenly they hear the engine of a car, apparently moving slowly, and when they look in that direction they see Soldi’s car (Soldi’s father’s car, actually) parking next to Violeta’s, in front of the gate. At that same moment, a man on horseback passes behind the parked cars at a slow trot and disappears behind the trees — enormous rosewoods — that border the sandy dirt road. The group pauses, waiting for the newest guests to get out of the car, cross the gate, and enter the courtyard, but, apparently remembering his duties as owner of the house, Gutiérrez advances and starts walking obsequiously toward the entrance. The arrival has produced some curiosity in Faustino as well, and he turns around and, with his back to the flames, advances a few steps, staring at the white bars of the gate. Finally, Soldi and a stranger get out of the front seat, and Gabriela Barco from the back, each one slamming their respective door. That’s José Carlos, Gabriela’s friend , Tomatis whispers to the Rosembergs, who nod their heads affirmatively, thanking him in this way for the information. At a distance, Gutiérrez and the three visitors carry on a conversation that is inaudible to those watching from the courtyard, by the swimming pool, a few steps from the grill. But everyone imagines that it’s a set of conventional displays of affection, the mundane sounds to which some sacrifice is required at any party, before beginning a conversation worthy of the name. Gutiérrez hurries to open the gate and leans over to receive a quick kiss on the cheek from Gabriela before she introduces her friend, while Soldi, taking advantage of the presentation ceremony, walks around them and hurries toward the others, their motionless, unrecognizable shadows gathered at their feet because of the perpendicular position of the sun, smiling, watching him.

There’s not a single cloud visible in the deep blue sky, in which, surrounding the sun, impossible to look at directly, golden sparks hover. Tomatis, who imagined in the bus yesterday that it would be raining all day today, nevertheless doesn’t allow himself to believe what he heard earlier on the weather report, while they were driving to Rincón, namely that by the end of the afternoon, and that night at least, the whole region would be covered with storms. Gabriela and José Carlos listen to him with an interest that isn’t overly apparent. For some time, Tomatis has noticed, with considerable relief, that in José Carlos’s company the adoration that Gabriela has felt for him since she was a baby is somewhat attenuated. That affective displacement allows him to relax, temporarily relinquishing his role as the infallible, sapient role model. But, curiously, when Gabriela replaces him with José Carlos, he, José Carlos, seems to grant him limitless credibility. It’s now almost one, and all the guests, with the exception of Leonor, have arrived, and the three of them are the only ones in the shade, not swimming, under the trees at the back, from which they can hear the attenuated sounds of the diving and splashing and the shouts and laughter of the swimmers. Tomatis is unaware of Gabi’s reason for not going in, or José Carlos’s (solidarity with Gabi), though his is perfectly straightforward: he doesn’t feel like getting wet, and besides, the cool shade under the trees is more pleasant than the water in the swimming pool. Also, from where they are, the smell of the cooking reaches them from time to time.

As though he were considering Tomatis’s meteorological observation, José Carlos appears thoughtful. His neatly combed black hair and his black beard betray his Sicilian origins, but he’s thin and tall, the mixture of blood from some genealogical branch saving him from the stereotype. He must be around forty, more or less, and his slow, almost modest gestures, his slightly faint voice, along with thinness, contrast with his taste for a generous table and for unsparing but courteous conversation. Last night, he was the one who prepared the chicken that Ángela left in the fridge, alla cacciatore , which is to say, sliced up in a pot with tomatoes and other vegetables and some white wine. Gabriela, entranced, watched him cook, forgetting the very existence of “Carlitos,” her mentor. After eating, they’d started watching a movie on television, but they got bored before it finished and went to sleep. They’re happy with the news, and though José Carlos already has two adolescent sons from his first marriage, the thought of being a father for a third time causes him a lot of pleasure, especially because he feels good with Gabriela and is sure that their relationship will last a long time, maybe for the rest of his life.

— Weather predictions depend too much on chance, he says, just to say something, trying to shore up with a more or less scientific observation the hope that it won’t rain during the cookout or the week ahead.

— It’s true. That’s why I prefer to organize events based on a more dignified system, Tomatis says. For example, this past month it’s been raining every Sunday. On other occasions, I’ve observed rainfall only on even days, and so on the odd days I never went out with an umbrella.

Gabriela and José Carlos laugh, and Tomatis, satisfied, allows himself a sip of white wine.

— Weather phenomena are a useful model for the universe, Gabriela says.

— The part and the whole equally unpredictable, José Carlos says.

They sit thoughtfully. The chaos of the Genesis, the primordial explosion, the ungodly rains and cyclones, and, more reasonable but no less mysterious, the Santa Rosa storm that, contradictorily, arrives punctually every August 30th, boil and churn wordlessly in their imaginations, speechless from the excessiveness of what they are forced to evoke. Though they are all standing calmly under the trees, holding a glass of cold wine, they feel trapped by the whirlwind of space that makes and unmakes events, part of which, out of habit, with an overabundance of confidence, they call their lives.

Suddenly, the sounds coming from the swimming pool are no longer heard, as though everyone had frozen and gone silent at the same moment. Instead, from some vague point, but very close by, from one of the ramshackle houses spread randomly across the fields, or possibly in one of the nearby homes, they hear the unexpected, sweet sound of a chamamé playing on a local radio station, like a fragment of order that they’d forgotten to include, erasing the chaos of the world with the intimate sound of the accordion.

— So that’s the great corruptor of the wives of the bourgeoisie, starting with his own? It actually looks like he could use some corrupting himself, Diana whispers to Nula when she sees Riera come out of the house in shorts and stop at the edge of the pool