Cesar Aira - The Hare

The effort of telling the story had left Clarke drained, quivering. On this occasion, his exhaustion was an aesthetic reflex, bearing in mind that this was the state in which his protagonist — that is, he himself — constantly found himself in the narration. Sweat was pouring down his face and neck, making him shudder in the hot morning. Carlos was taken aback: proof of which was that he was speechless. As Clarke gradually recovered, he understood his companion’s silence: there was no need to say a single word more about love, madness, or death. All that remained was destiny, but that was too vast, was akin in a way to the continuum. He also understood a persistent feeling that had been with him all through his tale, a slight unease he had been unable to place. Before he had begun the story, or what had been left of it to tell, he had been talking about interruptions. That was not right, it was incorrect. Interruptions did not exist. He would have explained this to Carlos, but he had no wish to interrupt his thoughts, which must have been edifying.

At midday they crossed a charming stream. Gauna surprised them by telling them it was the same one they had spent the night beside, which bent round like a bow. It might have been true, or not. They halted for lunch in the shade of its trees.

“Tell me something, Gauna,” Clarke said once they had finished eating, “how can you be sure we’ll meet up with the Widow? It’s obvious that she’s ahead of us, by however little. Isn’t it possible that she’s already finished what she had to do in the Sierra, and has left? All we would find then are cold ashes.”

“It so happens that tomorrow, the ninth of March, is an important date in our family. It’s my grandfather’s birthday (he would be a hundred, if he were still alive); it’s my mother’s birthday, and it’s mine too.”

“What an incredible coincidence.”

Carlos had become excited. “So tomorrow is your birthday, Gauna! You should have told us sooner. I don’t think there’s time for us to get you a present now.”

There was no reply.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the hills, which of course when seen close up were neither blue nor a wavy line on the horizon. They were broken terrain which the horses found hard going. The three men entered them almost at random. Clarke had vaguely hoped the famous pierced crag of the Ventana would present itself to his eyes straight away, but it was obviously not going to be that easy. The hills covered a wide area, with hundreds of peaks forming a real labyrinth. A creek — or rather, a river, because it must have been about a hundred yards wide — forced them to change direction; there was no point going to the trouble of swimming across it if they were not sure that their goal lay on the far side. They had been climbing the whole time, and were now breathing a different air, which affected their nervous systems and made them light-headed. There was not a single tree in sight. The silence was complete. A few birds flew out from the mountains and glided for a while without a sound. Standing out against the sky on high slopes beyond a range of low hills, they saw an endless herd of deer, rendered mute by distance. The landscape was reminiscent of a cardboard cutout, but on a huge scale, which gave the impression they were the ones who had become miniatures. The sun had been hidden as soon as they entered the hills, and must by now be falling below the horizon line, because the light took on first a bluish and then a gray tinge, while the odd wisp of lilac-colored cloud floated peacefully across the heavens. Gauna was looking round with as much curiosity as the other two: for him, as for them, this was the first time he had visited the hills. All three of them were equally lost. Clarke was thinking it would be only too absurd for the appointed day to come and go, without them being able to find the famous Ventana peak. Carlos must have been thinking the same, but made no comment, because in this more difficult terrain the three were riding alongside each other, and Gauna hardly seemed in a good mood. It was odd he had not insisted on more precise information. Had he imagined that the pierced peak would be visible from all sides? Clarke told himself that perhaps it was even hidden from the foot of the mountain itself; it could be any one of the crags around them. Then again, it might be none of them; the hills seemed to stretch on for ever. For the time being, it was already night, and since it was not a good idea to continue on this treacherous terrain if they could not see properly, they made camp in a hollow surrounded on almost every side by steep, conical peaks. The day had been a tiring one; this last stage had prolonged it even more than usual, until it was completely dark, and since they would have to be up at dawn if they were to have any chance of finding what they were looking for, they ate a perfunctory supper, saying little more than was necessary to show they were not ill-disposed to each other; then they slept.

Clarke was awakened by Gauna’s hand tugging at his shoulder. It was some unearthly hour in the middle of the night. His body clock told him he had slept several hours. He needed several more, no doubt, but even so he was sufficiently lucid to think that Gauna must have had a good reason for waking him. He sat up and looked around. Although it was nighttime, it was very bright: there was a full moon. The gaucho did not seem to want to speak. Everything was still and quiet, and the moonlight produced a strange effect on the contours of this mountain landscape. . one that was perhaps too strange, he realized a few seconds later. He wondered what could be causing it. The light was not uniform: some areas were very bright, others were in darkness, then further on there were bright patches again. As he transferred his gaze from the distant peaks to the spot were they were camped, he noted that they were in the center of an irregular circle of whiteness. This was the “reflection effect” that a heavenly body like the moon was not supposed to produce. Clarke looked again at the light, and what he saw was so inexplicable that he sat for over half a minute in complete stupefaction. The moon was shining through the far side of a tall conical mountain less than half a mile away. But that was impossible. He glanced at Gauna, who was standing beside him (he was still sitting on his bedroll, twisting round) and staring at the same spot. An association of ideas helped Clarke clear his mind. When he looked up again at the yellow face of the moon, he had already understood what was happening: by a great stroke of luck, they were seeing it through the Ventana peak. Even while he was staring thus at the moon in astonishment, it moved on, and the circle of light on the ground moved with it, leaving them at its dark rim. The Ventana, had found them, rather than them finding it.

“I’m going up there now,” Gauna said, still staring at the mountain.

“You mean you’re going to climb it?”

“I want to be at the top at dawn.”

“Won’t it be dangerous in the dark?”

“That face over there,” Gauna said, pointing to the left, “looks possible, and in a few minutes the moon should be shining directly onto it.”

“All right,” said Clarke, making up his mind. “Let’s wake

Carlos.”

“You mean you’re coming too?”

Clarke had considered this understood from the beginning. “If we’ve come this far. .” was all he said. He put his boots on and went to wake Carlos. He explained the discovery they had made. The moon was no longer shining through the pierced mountain but to one side of it, so the youngster could not verify for himself what he was being told. He expressed his doubts. Couldn’t it have been a hallucination, what the English called “wishful thinking”? They assured him it wasn’t.