Next he marked three points in the circle, which no doubt corresponded to the three vertices of an equilateral triangle. I watched him perform these operations, I must admit, without yet understanding their object.
— Light, the astrologer ordered. Your cigarette lighter.
I took it out of my pocket and lit it. Everything became clear to me when I saw Schultz make a ritual bow over each point of the triangle, his penknife scoring the ground with the dread names of Tetragrammaton, Eloha, and Elohim.
— Cripes! I exclaimed. This is a magic circle!
— Shhh! the astrologer silenced me. Bring the light closer.
I obeyed mechanically, and then saw him incribe the names Santos Vega, Juan Sin Ropa, and Martín Fierro in among the others.
— Strange confluence of names, I murmured.
— Yes, Schultz admitted, but the person we’re going to invoke requires it.
— Who is it?
Without answering, the astrologer made me enter the circle and put out my lighter. Next I heard him articulate the following spelclass="underline"
Lagoz atha cabyolas
Harrahya
Samahac ori famyolas
Karrehya.6
— Are you speaking Basque? I asked innocently. My grandparents are Basque, and I wouldn’t want…
— Silence, you fool! he hissed. To hell with your grandparents!
Raising his voice, he declaimed into the vastness of the night:
— I conjure you, Doña Logistilla,7 in the name of the living God, El, Ehome, Etrha, Eel Aser, Ejech Adonai Iah Tetragrammaton Saday Agios Other Agla Ischiros Athanatos, amen!8 I conjure you to appear before me in pleasant form, without noise or evil odour, and to answer and obey me!
The spell recited, Schultz and I listened, though without hearing a damned thing. But then, all at once, a gust of wind hit the ombú, whistling through each and every one of its branches. A moment later, we heard a furious pack of dogs bearing down on us.
— That’s enough now! someone shouted in the night. Git outta there, Cinnamon! Back, Fang! Gi’down, Pastor!
A frenzied, ear-splitting mob, the dogs rushed right up to the circle. But there, they stopped short and backed off, their fur standing on end, copiously pissing themselves and howling as if they’d been soundly whipped. Behind them shuffled a sharp-boned old woman wrapped in a shawl, her eyes a little too bright. As she drew near the circle, we recognized the same Doña Tecla we’d met at the Robles wake. According to nasty gossip, Doña Tecla was a frequenter of caves and covens, famous for casting evil spells, and without rival in the arts of the go-between, as handy at repairing what has been torn as at tearing what is whole.9
— Howdy, boys! she greeted us with politic courtesy.
— Hey, Doña! Schultz snapped at her. How about shutting up that pack of dogs!
Gathering the dogs around her, Doña Tecla pulled up her skirts and underskirts and let fly the loudest fart I’ve ever heard in this world.
— Go fetch! she shouted at the dogs. Go fetch, Pastor! Go gid’t, Fang!
The dogs sniffed the air and tore off at full speed, barking like crazy in the night. Then Doña Tecla, rubbing her hands as though warming them over an invisible stove, turned to Schultz and muttered:
– “Nice fire,” the old hag said as ’er shack burned down.
— Yes, replied the astrologer. But it’s no bad year when the crone drops a pup.
— In proverbs a bluffer, still a duffer! snarled the witch, not hiding her chagrin.
She stroked her bony chin, raised her mummified index finger, and said:
— Its beak’s a pecker, its arse a schlepper.
— The sewing needle! Schultz answered without missing a beat.
— Okay. But just remember that in mules we find two legs behind, and two legs before. We stand behind before we find what those behind be for.
— For my part, rejoined Schultz, I’m not the fig plucker nor the fig plucker’s son, but I’ll pluck your figs till the fig plucker comes. And I ain’t the pheasant plucker nor the pheasant plucker’s mate; I’m only pluckin’ pheasants ’cause the pheasant plucker’s late.10
I listened in astonishment to that display of folkloric jousting. And at this point it looked to me like the old woman was fixing to get mad. Dancing a couple of steps from a cueca, she stomped her feet hard, planted herself in front of the astrologer, and let him have it with the following ditty:
From my neck o’ the woods I come over,
My shawl dragged o’er the bog,
Just to come and see your
Face of a drooling dog.11
But Schultz, no doubt playing with a stacked hand, in turn stomped his feet within the circle, then stepped up to the old woman, and answered like this:
From my neck o’ the woods I come over,
My shawl not catchin’ no snag,
Just to come and see you,
Horsey-faced old nag.12
And here it was really something to see how Doña Tecla wrung her hands, sweating in anxiety:
— What’s the cure for rheumatiz? she asked, clinging to the last shreds of her wisdom.
— Buck-armadillo grease, prescribed the astrologer.
— To make a man go blind?
— Take a black snake and sew its eyes shut with red thread.
— You win, Mandinga!13 exclaimed Doña Tecla in unconditional surrender. Here I am, at yer service. What kin I do ya for?
The astrologer Schultz regarded her with an air of supreme dignity:
— We withcome, he announced, to inframbulate in the cacosites and suprambulate in the calirealms. And I order you to tell me where the holiportal opens.14
— Hey, now! grumbled the witch. Coltskin boots ain’t for everybody.
— But I am the Neogogue, revealed Schultz.
— Mercy, me! exclaimed Doña Tecla, crossing herself.
Without another word she entered the circle and went up to the ombú. But before showing us the opening of the passage in a cleft in the trunk, she raised her arms heavenward and cried out:
— Them Pollygogs are gonna pyro-shit theirselves now!15
Then, as I recall, Schultz and I slipped through the cleft of the ombú into a tunnel that sloped downward, impelling us on a wild, vertiginous descent. Suddenly the ground disappeared under our feet: something like a very strong whirlwind literally sucked us toward the depths. Then I lost consciousness, not in a faint, but rather as though falling asleep.16 And here the reader who, like me, has been tagging along on this adventure, must pause a moment and think whether you hadn’t better flee the ombú and go back to the visible Buenos Aires, still nearby; or whether you trust enough in your courage to descend with us into the intelligible Buenos Aires. Because once you cross the threshold of the cleft and plunge down the vertiginous tunnel, there will be no turning back: you will find yourself in the suburbs of Cacodelphia.
III
Upon regaining consciousness, we found ourselves in a region whose nature I couldn’t make out at first. Something like a dense fog surrounded and squeezed us, closing down our horizons almost at the tips of our noses. I’m saying, not fog, but “something like a fog” because its terrible dryness burned our throats, eyes, and nasal passages, as if an atmosphere of suspended volcanic ash were pressing down upon us. The ground was similarly arid. We stepped gingerly, and it crunched beneath our heels like saline crystals or calcified detritus. A vague murmur, as of the sea or multitudes, filled the area, rising and falling rhythmically like the tide.
— Let’s wait here for the fog to settle, Schultz said in a calm voice. We need to get to the jetty, and we don’t want to get lost in this suburb like a pair of fools.