They bought more aguardiente—a bottle for us and another for Belencito — and carried on drifting through Pasto’s carnival-filled neighbourhoods. The floats being created for January 6 remained hidden behind high walls, who knew which ones, awaiting the next day’s parade. The doctor was still wondering whether his float might be nearby — it was possible, why not? How about a happy coincidence and finding the float’s hiding place while he was with Primavera? Seeing the float with Primavera would be more thrilling than any frantic dance in the street, among a crowd of crazed revellers. Where in Pasto was his float installed? In which house, shed, patio or garage? Tomorrow was the hour of hours, the parade. Oh, Tulio Abril, Martín Umbría, Cangrejito Arbeláez and the rest of the artisans were not going to be slow in coming forward, they would make Bolívar’s carriage count in their own fine way, warn of his dreadful legacy, they would not be scared off. The doctor did not worry that the artisans might end on bad terms with him: they were not going to end on bad terms with themselves, he shouted inwardly, they would face any consequences, in spite of Governor Cántaro, his General Aipe and the fanatics.
He repeated this to himself, following along behind Primavera, who was on her own, several feet ahead of him in the never-ending encounter with bodies flowing towards them, like a river. He caught up. Put his arms around her. They kissed there for an instant that felt like a century: no dark thing, no ill-omened thing had ever happened between the two of them; no widow, no general, no pious woman, no strapping youth, they had two daughters, my God.
The streets let them pass, respectfully.
But the carnival would not be long in shaking them up, snatching them from one ecstasy, or pushing them towards another, more extreme. In Pandiaco, they saw a man peeing under a tree, terribly intoxicated, with terrible timing; it was too late to avoid him; the man had to be drunk, he was swaying about; in fact, he was peeing on a woman stretched out on the grass, face up — drunker than the drunk who was urinating on her, the woman laughed dully, shower me, tomcat, poison me.
They kissed; it was as if everything was determined to push them together, entwine them, in spite of the squalor.
At the top of a street in the Tejar neighbourhood, people were crowding around: a huge ox, reddish in colour, too placid — had they got it drunk? — was being shown off by two proud little boys; a fluorescent fabric mask hung from its horns, over its face, the face of a lewd demon, tongue licking its lips; they had tied a tin trident with tinkling bells to the ox’s tail. There in that street, captivated by Primavera’s beauty, and with the ox in the background — like an idol looking on — three drunks knelt before her, their hands raised as if praying, each one giving his name and profession: “Paquito Insuasti, slaughterman,” “Hortencio Villareal, saddler,” “And I’m Rafico Recalde, goldsmith, we all die at your feet, blessed Virgin.” The doctor was amazed that Primavera went along with her worshippers: she gave each of them a resounding kiss on the lips, and for each kiss the people cheered and the drums redoubled; Primavera did not stop there: she raised the ox’s mask and kissed it on the snout; then music seemed to rain down from the skies and men and children and women threw themselves into dancing, with the ox in the middle. For the first time in years, Doctor Proceso — who boasted of never dancing — danced with Primavera until they had both had more than enough. The exercise saved them from the aguardiente they drank, as did all the spicy empanadas they ate.
So they danced on through many Pasto neighbourhoods: they were seen in El Churo and La Panadería, in San Andrés and San Ignacio and San Felipe, in El Niño Jesús de Praga, in Maridíaz, in Palermo and Morasurco. Up at Dos Puentes, when they were resting, sitting on a wall, heads together, holding hands, the carnival called for them again in the shape of a man who went by with his dog, tied to a rope. Primavera silently mocked the fact that both man and dog wore ridiculous black capes, and above all she smirked because the man talked to his dog, which seemed all ears and followed him along. He was talking to his dog for all the world to hear: “You know very well that I told her so, I warned her, you heard me say it, you know I told her, I warned her, dear God let her not be dead, I pray to the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and if she is dead, don’t you worry, she’ll only be pretending, don’t you pay her any attention, not when she opens the door, or when she comes to greet us, or when we find out she’s not playing dead, oh, Holy Souls.”
At this, Primavera lost her self-controclass="underline"
“He’s killed her,” she said, retching.
“It’s just an actor teasing us,” the doctor said. He would never have imagined Primavera’s reaction, fighting nausea, bent over the wall. But she was soon sound asleep for a long time in the doctor’s arms — and he succumbed to sleep too, as night fell, to the beating of drums near and far, the carnivalesque thump-thump, deep, like an omnipresent heart.
The first drops of rain woke them. They drank a toast with more aguardiente, and then another.
Only in Mijitayo did they witness the finishing touches being put to a carnival float: although it was already night-time, the craftsmen were still working by the light of a string of lightbulbs. The gentle but steady rain was pattering on the zinc roofs. The tall garage doors, thrown wide open, allowed the curious to get a proper look at the float: at night, in the rain, it seemed all the more wondrous; it was a condor brought to life, on the highest nest in the Andes, and it stretched out its colossal wings as if it had just landed; in its claws lay a huge bull, black all over, in its death throes, bloodshot eyes imploring, mouth agape. Between its hooves was a sentence in Gothic script that the doctor did not have time to read. “Why aren’t we going to Belencito’s?” Primavera asked, impatiently, clutching his arm.
Ha made up his mind. “That is where we’re going.”
And they headed off there, by the half-light of the carnival. The last revellers were still up and about, the occasional viva! and other cries rang out; the crowd went up or down the puddled streets, on their way home. The pavements were littered with curled-up drunks, asleep or awake, who grunted at their passing. They went up through Santiago, adjacent to the Obrero neighbourhood, and the rain got heavier. There was a spasm across the city: suddenly the electricity was cut off; people were using candles and kerosene lamps for light. In windows, candle flames guttered “like ghosts’ eyes,” Primavera said — her breath smelled of aguardiente, her speech was slurred — over-excited, my poor Primavera, the doctor thought, you want and fear what is to come. In Obrero, with its muddy streets, he pointed out Belencito Jojoa’s house to Primavera from a dark street corner. Would she go? Would she dare?
“Let’s get on with it,” was all she said by way of an answer. And her impatience made the doctor uneasy.
But an instant after they knocked on the door, he saw her leap like a panther into the shadows of the front garden, far away from the candle lighting up the porch, she did not want them to see her.
I wasn’t expecting that, Primavera, he thought.
“Belencito has just left us,” Doña Benigna Villota announced solemnly from the doorway.
She held a candlestick beneath her face. Other yellow faces, of old, inquisitive women, accompanied her.
The doctor did not understand. He was going to ask where Belencito had gone to — thinking he might actually have gone off somewhere, like in his heyday — when the penny dropped. He understood it more fully when he heard Primavera’s laughter from somewhere in the garden surrounding the house: she was laughing from nerves, but laughing, nonetheless, like at the circus.