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— Thanks, Leto repeats, somewhat humiliated by all of that solicitude because, overwhelmed by the speed of the accident, he is unable to discern the discrete way in which the Mathematician conceals his authentic concern.

— Alright then, where were we? Leto asks, removing a bent cigarette from the packet and returning the packet to his shirt pocket. Hurrying somewhat, to overcome the situation, as they say, but with his hands still trembling, he lights the cigarette and puts away the matches. His shadow, slightly shorter, projects over the gray pavement next to the Mathematician’s.

They continue. While they try to appear indifferent and outwardly calm, in the depths of their so-called souls — apparently not translucent but murky, as we were saying, or rather yours truly, the author, was saying just now — they struggle with emotions that anger them and that they would rather not see expressed inside themselves, humiliated by the thought that the other, because of his apparent indifference, is too noble to feel them. In Leto’s case it’s a belief — tenuous, it’s true, but very present — that what just took place has ruined any pretense of superiority toward the Mathematician, accompanied by the shameful suspicion of being excluded from any other sphere in which he might feel equal or superior to him, while the Mathematician, beginning to sense that the happiness he feels at having saved Leto from falling is growing into a kind of euphoria in which he senses certain non-altruistic elements, is filled with guilt. But let’s be clear: assuming that we agree that — as we have been saying from the start — all of this is just more or less, that what seems clear and precise belongs to the order of conjecture, practically of invention, that most of the time the evidence is only briefly ignited then extinguished beyond, or behind (if you prefer), what they call words, assuming that from the start we have agreed about everything, to be clear let’s say it for the last time, though it’s always the same: all of this is just more or less and as they say — and after all, what’s the difference!

Saved, the Mathematician could have said again. The character — it’s the exact word that corresponds to him in the present circumstances — walking a few meters ahead of them turns at hearing their voices and stops to wait. At an age when most others are sure to feel lost in a dark jungle, he possesses an overabundant self-satisfaction, and his pale brown checked suit, lightweight and tailor-made, the perfectly adjusted knot in his tie, the imperceptible rose-colored dots on his suit, his long, waxed hair, the matching colors of his suit and his tan — slightly clearer than the Mathematician’s, which inspires, as they say, his admiration — testify to his self-satisfaction — they proclaim it even. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, he waits for them with a wide smile directed exclusively toward the Mathematician, who, Leto senses, reticently returns it. But when they reach him, the Mathematician softly extends an indifferent hand that the other grabs and shakes tenaciously, even going so far as to cover it with his left while doing so. And Leto is on the verge of feeling invisible again, as he was in Tomatis’s presence when, in an unexpected and peremptory way, the Mathematician introduces them: Do you know each other? My friend Leto. The doctor Méndez Mantaras. And then, as though to apologize to Leto, he adds: He’s a distant relative. The distant relative extends the tips of his fingers, barely allowing Leto’s hand to graze them, and then fixes a disapproving look on the Mathematician, which more or less signifies: As though the family didn’t have it bad enough with your parents’ eccentricities and your quirks, you had to come along and introduce me to one of your communist friends in the middle of San Martín just to burn me. But the Mathematician, without hesitating, responds with a severe and penetrating look:

Is something wrong? If so then get going right now and if not then drop it—more or less like that, no? — his eyelashes slightly pinched, as they say, looking down at him so much that Leto wonders if the Mathematician, magically, like the superheroes in comics, has grown subtly taller. The distant relative, apparently no less muscular than the Mathematician, or only slightly less so, as though the difference in size were of a category distinct from the physical, notices the peremptory warning immediately and, to Leto’s surprise — expecting a reaction proportional to the unequivocal severity of the Mathematician’s look — puts on an elusive and conventional smile and starts throwing out pleasantries: How’s the family? Beautiful day, no? Let’s walk together to the corner since we’re going in the same direction, etc., etc., to which the Mathematician, as they begin to walk, starts responding in a condescending and even disdainful way that the other, unfazed, pretends not to notice, or that maybe he only half-listens to, occupied as he is in digging through his cache of pleasantries in order to toss them one by one — with his fake cheerful and fake familiar tone — into the morning air. How’s Tostado? Did you go to the Saturday rugby match in Paraná? And come to think of it, how was Europe? To this last question, after a contrary hesitation, as though he couldn’t decide how to take it, the Mathematician starts to deliver — this is the word that sounds best here — a mechanical, fast summary, and likewise abundant response in which the string of cities and accompanying images — evoked for those he admires at the even and gentle rhythm of a carousel — have, in the present case, the same force, frequency, and effect on the other as a series of hammerings: Warsaw, there was nothing left; La Rochelle, sparkling white; Paris, an unexpected rainstorm; Brussels, for The Census at Bethlehem; Bruges, they painted what they saw; Vienna, all the locals seem to believe in terminal analysis; Biarritz, our oligarchs would have loved it; Palermo, the gods passed through before disappearing; Venice, the real gateway to the East, not Istanbul; Segovia, arduous in the yellow wheat, etc., etc., in a rapid, precise way, pretending to believe that the distant relative understands what his allusions denote, but formulating them, Leto thinks, in the most condensed and cryptic way possible, so that the relative, who seems to be attempting an intense concentration of effort so as not to miss anything, won’t understand them. Moreover, Leto senses that the Mathematician, although simulating a conversation with his distant relative, is actually talking to him — to Leto, no? — as though he were performing a practical demonstration of the other’s absolute ineptitude, insofar as every one of his words and gestures seems not to say what it normally would, but instead rehearses a categorical formula corroborated over and over by the accumulating evidence: See? See? Don’t bother wasting time on him, he’s not interesting. Even the memories of Europe, fleeting, fragmentary, radically condensed and simplified now that they are somewhat distant, he presents with an exaggerated vividness and a false spontaneity, intending to amplify their familiarity, which in a way diminishes the complicity because Leto, as much or possibly more than the distant relative, believes in the authentic possession of those memories and in the aura they confer on their possessor. Further, no doubt: what to Leto represents a place to project his imaginary energy — so to speak, and if the expression fits — to the distant relative is nothing more than another quirk of a member of the most extravagant branch of the family. Then again, the Mathematician’s phrases don’t seem to have any effect on him, since in the seconds of silence that follow them, the distant relative has time to find a new topic of conversation, or of monologue rather, and obliterating any response in advance, begins to speak: The night before he had gone to the city center with his wife — who in fact is second cousins with the Mathematician — to see the premier of The Wind in Florida, and the movie seems to have made what they call an indelible impression on him, and strenuously recommending it, as they say — to the Mathematician, no? given that Leto’s presence continues to be problematic to him — and inspired by the renewed empathy remembering it produces, he begins to tell him the plot. According to him, it’s the story of a family of pioneers on the Florida panhandle — apparently that’s how it’s referred to there — who, after fighting for years against the Indians, build a ranch that little by little is transformed into a huge plantation. The movie tracks three generations, the pioneer grandfather, the landowner father, and his two sons, one good and one bad, who fall in love with the same woman — the widow of a neighboring farmer who was killed in a brawl with the landowner over an argument about property rights. The widow first falls in love with the bad one, but when she realizes her mistake, she falls in love with the good one, and at the climax a hurricane engulfs them and the plantation house is destroyed in a blaze. Instead of yielding to his distant relative’s hope — after being shaken by pathos — of sympathy from the others, the Mathematician, having received the story with deliberately ostentatious skepticism and insulting silence, forces him instead to hear a counter explication of the same in the following terms, more or less: As far as he can tell it’s a piece of garbage intended to justify the slaughter of the Indians, the brutal seizure of Mexican territory (though it takes place in Florida the story is clearly a metaphor for all of Latin America), and the absorption of small business by big monopolies, with the president of the Lions Club dressed up as a landowner, a showgirl passed off as a Methodist widow, and two stock actors playing the roles of the brothers, the good blonde one, neat and clean-shaven, and the black-haired bad one, with a curly beard, to implicitly suggest that Anglo-Saxons are the morally and physically superior race. And at the climax — what a coincidence, no? — the hurricane and the fire happen. All this had to happen at once and he — the Mathematician, no? — wonders if the fire starts at the same time as the hurricane just so that the rain can put out the flames and, after an inconsequential scare in which all the evil darkies are exterminated, the blonde gallant and the showgirl can rebuild the mansion as though nothing happened and continue exploiting their neighbors like before so that their grandchildren can drop their atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a clean conscience. And the Mathematician finishes his interpretation with a short, satisfied, and somewhat exaggerated laugh that serves, though Leto is unaware of this, as supplementary evidence to a kind of indictment concentrated in the counter-explication: They are not interesting. They are ignorant and ambitious and their worldview is rooted in a murderous solipsism. They hate what they don’t understand and despise what doesn’t resemble them. Although through mysterious aspects of my temperament and my own personal efforts I’ve managed to differentiate myself as much as possible, the tragedy of my life until the day I die will consist of having been born among them. To maintain or expand their privilege they are capable of humiliating their parents, of sending their own brother to prison if they detect even the shadow of opposition in him. To perpetuate their caste they would lay waste to the universe. To treat them differently from the way I do would be a dangerous mistake. Anything you can do to dismay or neutralize them is useful as a form of self-preservation, but apart from that, for the things that really matter, it’s not worth wasting time on them, they are not interesting.