Juan José Saer - Scars

I lie down in utter darkness, face up.

At first nothing happens.

Then, almost inaudibly, the crackling begins. But it’s more than a wheat field burning, wide as it is. It’s a much deeper crackling, a much larger fire. I see hills, cities, plains, jungles burning, slowly incinerating, the even flames extending like a yellow blanket over the surface of the planet, devouring it. And nothing is heard because there’s no one to observe it, to know this giant fireball that’s burning silently and spinning slowly in the blackness, which it mars with a weak glow. Sometimes the faraway sound of an explosion echoes, at some vague point on the surface, arriving completely silently, or brief sparks from a short burst are perceived. But perceive is wrong, because there’s no one to perceive anything. The horde of gorillas that rose laboriously from the nothing, clinging to the dried crust with its teeth and claws, has returned to the nothing, without a sound. It was like some awful mirage, a sickening nightmare crashing against the motionless rocks in the middle of a bright and maddening space. I see the ball of fire spin, and then the fire dies down and goes out completely; the first clear breezes form thin whirlwinds with the cold ashes of the finally pacified horde. The white dust sparkles in the air, in the weak light of a dead sun.

It’s almost dawn when I get up. I go out. It’s raining. I haven’t slept. I approach the first corner slowly, then turn right. The headlights illuminate the shifting masses of fog that condense as they move away from the car. Iridescent circles of water take shape around the lights. The fragmented trees in the Plaza de Mayo extend their foliage through the white clouds. Streetlights reflect off the dense, shifting masses. The wiper blades rhythmically skim the windshield surface. I turn north on San Martín, then on the boulevard, to the suspension bridge. Water pours from the gray sentry box at the mouth of the bridge, its painted wood walls barely visible. On the old waterfront I see, through the blurry right side window, the concrete railing with its concrete balustrades repeating infinitely and sliding backward. They’re wet, surrounded by fog. For a moment I have the feeling of not moving, of being completely motionless. All I feel is the monotone hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the wiper blades on the glass, where drops collide and explode into strange, fleeting shapes. Suddenly the monotony of the engine is torn; I hear two or three brief explosions that shake the car. Then the explosions continue, and the hum is replaced by a series of explosions and the car starts to slow down. I steer it to the right, coasting on its momentum. Then there’s nothing. The wiper blades stop and the car rolls a few meters farther and stops as well. I look at the gauge. The red needle indicates an empty tank. I stop the engine. The sun is coming up, but the wet fog surrounds the car so closely that all I can see is the inert body of the car and the slowly drifting whitish masses that have erased the waterfront, if there really is a waterfront, and which completely obscure my vision, if — beyond the fog — there really is anything for my eyes to see.

WHOEVER FINDS ME FIRST SHOULD KILL ME.

I wake up. My eyes are closed. I’m on my side, with the sheet to my shoulder. When I open my eyes, there’s the light. It’s gray, filtering in through the blinds. There’s the bureau and the oval mirror. She’s in bed, awake, with her back to me. I can hear her breathing.

— Shouldn’t you be up already, getting things together if we’re really going, I say.

— You’re pretending to be asleep, I know it, I say.

I turn over, face up. There’s the ceiling above me in a shadow that the rays of light coming in through the cracks in the blinds don’t reach. I turn toward her. Her back is to me. Her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes.

— You’re pretending to sleep, I say.

She shivers.

— Don’t shiver, I say. Don’t shiver because I know you’re more awake than me and you’re trying to piss me off.

I put my hand on her shoulder and start shaking her. Suddenly she sits up on the edge of the bed. She looks at me. Her hair is falling on her face and her eyes are narrowed.

— How are we going hunting if it’s raining out? she says.

— Who says it’s raining? I say.

— It’s been raining all week, she says. Think it’s going to stop today, just like that?

— It wasn’t raining last night, I say.

She walks out and comes right back in, leaving the door to the courtyard open. A gray shimmer filters through.

— No. It’s not raining, she says. What about instead of going hunting we stay home? she says. Are we really going to pack everything up and head out like a bunch of gypsies?

— I wasn’t farting around when I asked for the truck, I say. I had to ask the foreman for it. When we have the truck for a day, we’re not staying home.

She shrugs and walks out again. I’m lying face up. There’s the ceiling, in the bedroom, which the gray light filtering in from the courtyard illuminates slightly more. The joists crisscross under the zinc sheets. The girl comes in.

— We’re going hunting, I say. We’re going to Colastiné, and we’re bringing back a big pile of ducks.

— Are we going in the canoe? she says.

— Sure we are, I say.

The girl runs out. I sit up on the edge of the bed. Now the oval mirror reflects me back. I get up and dress. Then I go out to the courtyard. The light is gray. She comes out of the bathroom.

— Are you going to shave? she says.

— No, I say. It’s the day of the worker. I decide if I shave or not.

— I’m not going out if you don’t shave, she says.

— I just told you it’s the day of the worker, I say.

She leaves. The courtyard is bare, there’s no weeds. There’s the black stumps of the trees I pulled out. I’ve smoothed out the ground where the trees had been. What’s left in the courtyard is the bare ground, the solid brick wall, and the two mutilated trunks. I go to the bathroom and do my business and then I wash my face and comb my hair. I go back to the courtyard.

— Can I drink some mate before we leave?

There’s the two black tree trunks I pulled out. The rain’s been falling on them for a week. The ground has been smoothed out by the rain. There’s not a single furrow. There’s just the bare courtyard now.

— Can I or can’t I? I say.

— I can’t do a million things at once, says her voice from the kitchen.

— Do I have to make it myself, then? I say.

She looks out the kitchen door.

— I’m not your maid, she says. She’s holding a package wrapped in newspaper. She’s just finishing wrapping it up.

— I’ve told you before I don’t like you wrapping food up in the paper, I say.

She throws the package at me. It hits my arm, and the paper breaks and four loaves of bread fall on the bricks and mud in the courtyard. She wants me to kill her. That’s what she wants. She stares at me furiously from the kitchen. The fury is just in her eyes, because her mouth is contorted into a weird grimace, laughing. That’s what she wants. I stoop and pick up the bread. The one that fell in the dirt is muddy, and it’s left a mark on the ground. I throw the bread into the air, away from the house. The bread sails through the gray air, awkwardly, darkening as it moves off, and then it disappears behind the wall.

— Easy, Gringa, I say.

I gather up the paper, but it’s ruined, useless. I go to the kitchen. She comes in after. Then the girl comes in. I wrap up the loaves and put them in a canvas bag. Then I go get the shotgun and the cartridges, which I set out the night before. The shotgun’s base was removed. It’s heavy. I throw it over my shoulder and pick up the cartridge belt and all the rounds. Back in the kitchen, she and the girl are making some bundles with dish cloths and packing them in the canvas bag. I see they’ve put the kettle on the flame and that the mate and the straw are on the stove. I leave the cartridge belt and the rounds on the table and fill the mate with yerba.