Cesar Aira - The Hare

“Don’t be crazy. Let me be as I am.”

“All right. Don’t get me wrong. Of course you’re fine as you are. It’s not for nothing that you’re my best friend, Clarke.” He embraced him, fighting back another flood of tears. “It’s just that so many things have happened. . ”

“Did Yñuy recognize you?”

Carlos stared at him, surprised and somewhat offended.

“Of course she recognized me! She told me she had spent the whole time thinking of me. She’s entranced by me.”

Clarke thought better of reminding the boy that it was he who had not seemed so faithful. At that point, Gauna arrived.

“Well, was it her?”

“Yes. She is my sister. She told me she had brought the girl here because your mother, Clarke, had asked her to, in order to conceal the twins she was about to give birth to. .”

“Yes, we’ve already heard that,” Clarke butted in, not wanting to go into detail in front of Carlos. “What about the diamond?”

“She told me it didn’t exist.”

“And you believed her?”

“I’m afraid I had no choice.”

This sounded odd to the Englishman, coming as it did from someone normally so suspicious as Gauna. But he could see something had made a great impression on the gaucho, which was probably the reason for his strange meekness. Carlos must have dimly felt the same, to judge by the question he asked:

“Is she pretty?”

Gauna took time before he replied, in the hushed voice of a threatened conspirator:

“I think she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.”

“So what does it matter that the stone doesn’t exist!” Carlos exclaimed. “Look at all we’ve discovered anyway! Clarke’s found his mother, which is the most important thing; I’ve found Yñuy; you, your sister. It’s more than we could ever have hoped for, always supposing we were hoping for something.”

“That’s true.”

“But we have to meet this great beauty,” the boy gushed. “You’ll introduce us to her, won’t you, Gauna?”

“Oh, I was forgetting,” the gaucho said, giving himself the classic slap on the forehead. “She asked to meet you. Come on.”

As they got up, they were surprised to find that the darkness was lifting. The faintest of glimmers had spread through the night, and at this first instant of what soon afterward became nothing more than the sad gray of dawn, all the shadows had taken on a transparent quality. It was still night, but it was also day, and at the same time was neither one nor the other.

“Here she comes,” Gauna remarked before they had gone more than a few steps. They looked up. The path rose in a steep track that must have been made by deer. A lone woman was coming down toward them. They waited for her. In this half-light that did not dispel the darkness but still allowed them to see, the Widow seemed to them almost painfully beautiful. They stood there with their mouths wide open. She looked up and also stopped, searching out Clarke’s face. There was a moment of mystery, and then one of those “serious smiles,” such as a man sees only a few times in his life spread across her face. Her gaze showed a confidence, an acceptance that were totally absent from Clarke’s features, which were a picture of horror and misery. His heart had finally failed him. He felt that the whole of his past life was rushing uncontrollably to this moment, to this instant which because it was too close and too enormous, risked escaping, risked crushing him.

“Rossanna. .”

“Tom. .”

“Am I dreaming?”

“No.”

“But. . weren’t you dead? In the glacier?”

“No. I escaped. There was a flash of lightning — I don’t know if you saw it — the ice I was imprisoned in shattered and melted. . the next day, some Indians rescued me. .”

“I can’t believe it! It’s not possible!”

“Tom. . it’s me.”

“Rossanna. . How?. . How are you?” A stupid question, but he found it hard to think.

“You’re exactly the same.”

“So are you. You’re more, much more. .”

“More the same?”

“More beautiful.”

“I’m not young anymore.”

“Yes you are!” Clarke said, raising his voice from the level of a stuttering mumble for the first time. But then at once he returned to a whisper: “Did you. . did you remember me?”

“What about you?”

“The whole time.”

“Still?”

“Yes, yes, always!”

He was sincere, there could be no doubting that. They came toward each other and linked hands, still staring into each other’s eyes. They were in their own little bubble; the world had ceased to exist for them. Carlos, who had been watching the scene with the most passionate attention, exchanged radiant glances with Gauna, and was beside himself with the desire to join in.

“Clarke, Clarke. .” he hissed. “Señora. .”

She turned to him with a gentle smile:

“You’re the one who’s in love with the girl, aren’t you?”

“I can vouch for the fact that Clarke, who’s my best friend, is still in love with you. . There’s no other woman for him. . ”

Clarke did not bother to shut him up because he did not even hear him. Rossanna turned to look at him again:

“When you looked at me just now I saw in your eyes exactly the same gaze as on that fateful day when I was trapped in the glacier. . ”

“You mean you saw me then?”

“Of course I did.”

“You saw me?”

The horror came flooding back. Clarke had survived all these years absolutely convinced that he had seen her dead, and now it turned out that not only was this untrue, but that she had seen him looking at her. It seemed to him that the whole of his life (and this was the real revelation) had been impregnated with a diffuse, usually repressed terror. It was then, and only then, that love — an overpowering, immense love — was rekindled in him; love for this woman who was more beautiful than anything, the love of his life. Clarke thought that this was the first time he had ever truly loved; what had come before was fantasy, youth, nostalgia; what he felt now was genuine and lasting. Relieved, he turned toward Carlos, who was gazing transfixed at the transformation of his friend’s features. He was about to say something, anything, to him when they heard the sound of laughter.

It was Juana Pitiley, surrounded by several people who were staring at something with great curiosity. She came over to them, and they could see she was carrying two babies, one in each arm.

“Two girls,” she said.

The babies, wrapped in clean white cloths, were tiny and perfectly formed, like two little dolls. They all stared at them enchanted for a few moments.

“What a remarkable proliferation of twins,” said Clarke.

“I’m delighted they’re girls,” Juana Pitiley said. “It’s as though a curse were finally being lifted.”

Rossanna, her arm linked through Clarke’s, said to him:

“There’s something you should know, Tom, and now seems to be the right moment. When we two were separated fifteen years ago, I was pregnant. At the time I hadn’t told you because I was waiting for the right opportunity, which never came. And I also had twins, a boy and a girl.”

“No!”

“It’s as though we all belonged to the same family.”

“But we do! This lady has just told me I’m her son.”

Perplexed, Rossanna looked toward Juana Pitiley, and saw the confirmation of Clarke’s words on her face. She murmured:

“That explains how similar you look to Namuncurá, my constant suitor.”

“Yes, we’re twins too. But why did you never say yes to him?”

A “serious smile” was her only reply.

“And those children?” Clarke was anxious to know. “Our children? What became of them?”