“Don’t kill me!” she cried.
“Shut up, you whore!”
“I’m not that! That thing you said! I’m a seamstress!”
“Shut up! Don’t make me laugh! Grrragh!”
It had grown a lot. Only a few feet separated them. . And then the wind came between them, as a last defense. He blew furiously, but the Monster only laughed harder. How little the wind could do against a transformation! The wind is wind, and nothing more. How could it have fallen in love with Delia? How could she have believed it? No one could be so innocent. The gentleman Sir Ventarrón, the wandering knight. He madly tried to slow the monster down, but he was nothing but air. .
An instant, too, has its eternity. We’ll leave Delia in that eternity while I look after the other guests.
Chiquito and Ramón stopped their vehicles at a certain distance and studied each other for a moment. The former had Silvia Balero at his side, unhinged and dazed as a zombie. Only Ramón’s eyes were visible through the narrow half-moon over the horn at the front of the rolling armadillo. At last the truck driver opened his door and stuck out a leg. . Ramón’s eyes disappeared from the slot, and a moment later he was getting out through the back of his vehicle. They approached without taking their eyes off each other.
“Good afternoon,” said Chiquito. “I have to ask you a favor, if you’re going to Pringles; take this young lady with you. She had an accident, and it’s hard to find transportation from here.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to keep going south. I’m going to pick up a shipment, they’ve been waiting for me since this afternoon in Esquel. I’m already late.”
“But then you’re coming back, and surely you’ll have room for her.”
“The thing is, the lady urgently needs to be in Pringles. Tomorrow at ten she gets married.”
“Married?”
“That’s what she told me. You can imagine her state. She’s hysterical. I can’t stand her anymore.”
“We’ve all got problems.”
“True. Me too.”
“But taking on other people’s problems. .”
“Listen, Siffoni, I found her there, all I did was open the door for her, I couldn’t leave her in the middle of nowhere like that.”
“Don’t lie!” roared Ramón, and he pulled the mask out of his shirt pocket for the other to see. “You won her playing poker. You won her from me.”
Chiquito sighed. He’d actually been aware of this, but he’d given it a shot anyway. They were silent for a moment. Ramón, calmer, suggested:
“You can just leave her on the side of the road. Someone will come by.”
“Yes, I can. But she could make a lot of trouble for me. There’s the matter of her wedding. Couldn’t you do me a favor?”
“You know me, Larralde. I don’t do favors for anybody.”
This phrase was a password; it meant they had reached an agreement, without any need to go into details. The cards would decide. Not the matter of Silvia Balero, either; that was just an excuse. It was the other matter.
The wind, impartial, brought everything they needed from beyond the horizon: a table, two chairs, a green tablecloth, fifty-two cards and a hundred red mother-of-pearl chips. They sat down. The table was too big and they looked tiny across it, their eyes half-closed, like two Chinese. The wind shuffled and dealt.
Paris, July 5, 1991