Clarke’s astonishment was like a mental earthquake. He suddenly realized that everything he had been listening to, with such naive consideration, was nothing more than the ranting of a complete madman. What a waste of time! It was then that Coliqueo proffered his final sentence from on high:
“The duck’s egg is the most effective of all.”
“I need to get some air. If you’ll excuse me. .”
Clarke stood up.
“Yes, off you go. We’ll meet later. Think it over.”
Clarke left the tent taking great gulps of air. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, especially when faced with the demanding jury represented by the inner scruples of an Englishman with a good education. Together with the air, Clarke sucked in all the images around him, to clear his mind. The Voroga camp seemed less miserable than it had that morning. The blue of the afternoon sky, the children’s cries, the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the loose horses, the glances of the Indian women — everything drew him back to a normality he had momentarily felt tremble beneath his feet. He walked toward the gully where they had left their troop of horses and their gear. Aristídes Ordóñez was sitting keeping watch. Clarke asked where Gauna was.
“I don’t know,” the gaucho said, “he left me to look after things, but that was a long time ago. He’s not come back, and I have to leave.”
“Yes, off you go. Many thanks.”
Clarke was left on his own. A few minutes went by, and he began to regret having come to replace Ordóñez. He was stuck there now until nightfall, because there was little hope that Gauna and Carlos would interrupt whatever they were doing to come and see if he needed them. And if he so much as budged, everything would be stolen, down to their stirrups. He decided at least to enjoy his solitude. He lit his pipe, and began to smoke staring at the river, which flowed past beneath him. It was a small, treeless stream; the little water it contained was far from clean. At the top of the riverbank lay the untidy assortment of tents. Many of the Indians had come out like him to enjoy the fresh air. The Vorogas looked exactly the same as the Huilliches, except that they spoke a different language; once out of earshot, this distinguishing feature naturally disappeared. And yet it was still there. Since in reality nothing is imperceptible, thought Clarke, the difference was absolute, and involved their entire appearance. And the difference could be summed up by saying that in Salinas Grandes the Indians lived outside life, whereas here they were inside it. He had landed directly in the realm of fable, which he had taken to be real; now he had to get used to the idea that this fable was merely an island in the ocean of normal life. Plebeian and westernized, the Vorogas were a reminder of the ordinary things in society. To be completely ordinary, all that was needed was for them to work. Of course, there was no danger of them making that sacrifice, not even for aesthetic reasons.
Something in the river caught his attention. Something whitish was floating downstream at the leisurely pace of the murky current. He found himself unable to tear his gaze from the undulations of this large, soft object. It was only when it passed in front of him that he realized what it was: a man’s shirt, its arms slowly waving almost as if it were filled with a drowning body. It drifted on down the stream and disappeared round a bend, still in the center of the current, as slowly and as inexplicably as it had appeared. Clarke wondered if it might not be a passive kind of washing, by distance rather than by scrubbing.
His thoughts spread to more general considerations concerning the aporias of sight. The way the Vorogas reflected current society coincided with the river current, and in both cases the idea coincided with what he had been looking at, and the time span his gaze had created. Two young Indian girls walked past him arm-in-arm, staring at him provocatively, then started whispering and giggling in a hysterical manner. A short while later, they were back; on this occasion they asked him the time, but without waiting for his answer, began to whisper and giggle again. One of them turned her head. . they could not have been more than ten years old, but they were already behaving like experienced streetwalkers.
A dog came up to Clarke, a skinny mongrel which sniffed at him as though he were an object.
It was at this moment that Gauna appeared. He was in a hurry, and had his usual morose look on his face. When he saw Clarke sitting among their gear, he slowed down, and his face darkened still further. He sat down beside Clarke, and stared into the distance. Clarke wanted to ask him how he had met Ordóñez, but did not have time: Gauna came straight to the point:
“We’re wasting our time, don’t you think?”
A thousand ingenious and philosophically intriguing responses flashed through Clarke’s mind, but something told him it would be better not to risk any of them. He had found that this kind of reply only took the conversation away from what really mattered. What had come to seem most important, given all the philosophically intriguing events that had happened to him, was the need for action. He was therefore willing to hear what the gaucho had to say, because he sensed that thanks to him they might finally begin to act. And indeed it was on this point that Gauna, without seeming at all put out by the lack of response, now insisted:
“They could go on talking to you here for a year or two, and you’d still be stuck where you were at the start. The hare, as they say, leaps where least expected — always supposing that you’re expecting something, however little, in reality. And you’re looking for a hare, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Gauna.”
“You’ll be surprised to hear that I am too.”
“Yes? You didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t ask. You were so busy chewing the fat with the kid that my intentions were never mentioned.”
“That’s easily put right. As I’ve said often that it’s become second nature to me: I’m all ears.”
“But we’ve had more than enough talk! What I’m suggesting is that we leave here today, right now.”
“Heading where?”
“Heading after the Widow. I’ve found out that she’s close by, three or four days’ ride to the southeast, no more. She came through near here less than a week ago, and apparently she was in no hurry.”
“Coliqueo told me something of the sort. I agree it’s probably true — but what’s so important about the Widow that we should go in search of her? I don’t think she kidnapped Cafulcurá.”
“Nobody has ever believed that.”
“But Mallén. .”
“You’re so naive! You’ve swallowed everything you’ve been told, without exception. And then you say you don’t believe in God!”
Now it was Gauna’s turn to bring in philosophy. Clarke deliberately did not follow him down that track:
“Well then?”
“The Widow has got the Hare. Or will be getting it in the next few days. It’s as simple as that.”
(Clarke supplied the capital “H” in his own mind, and could have sworn it was there in reality.)
“Explain yourself, I beg you.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I can believe anything, as you’ve said. But I prefer to know what it is I am believing in.”
“It’s not something that can be explained in a couple of words. It’s a long story.”
The summer afternoon had merged into an extraordinary purple sunset. As if shot like arrows, huge flocks of parrakeets flew past toward some tall violet-colored cliffs in the far distance. Bands of dark blue began to spread above the horizon. The shadows of the two men lengthened down to the water’s edge.
“I belong to one of the families,” Gauna began, “who have most right to own land in Argentina. I am a Gauna Alvear. Does that surprise you? Vast, immeasurable estates, cattle as plentiful as the blades of grass they eat, salt meat factories, accounts in English banks, and even a decisive political role — all of this should be mine by right, were it not for the fact that unfortunate family complications have prevented it becoming a reality. That is why you have come to know me in this ragged guise of a gaucho exposed to the hazards of a tracker’s life. The entire branch of the Gauna Alvear family I belong to — the richest one — has been affected by illegitimate births. None of my grandfather’s three daughters were married; all of them had children. Throughout my childhood I thought I was the only son of a devout, melancholy woman. But this was not the case: another offspring, female this time, the fruit of as fleeting a relation of my mother’s as I myself was, had come into the world. In her case though, her father — an adventurer — had not only recognized her, but had taken her with him. It was only as an adult that I learned of the return of this half-sister of mine. She had even for a brief while been in Buenos Aires, before setting off for the interior, where she had created a very curious position for herself. A great beauty, she had seduced many idle indigenous leaders, and ended up married, apparently against her will and in payment for her dissipated life, to a chieftain called Rondeau. .”