They’d all crossed the line now into the land of adventure. Before them, the land sloped away gently, coated in an armour of aggressive bushes, all barbs and quills. But the seven men hardly noticed them, so powerful was their exaltation before that Argentine night, the purity of its gloom, the firmness of its flesh: it seemed to fuse heaven and earth, man and beast, in a single block of darkness. Their eyes soon tired of trying to penetrate the obscurity below. But when they raised their gaze aloft, a sacred dread filled their hearts before the vision of stars clustered in the sky like the thousand eyes of a blinking Argos. It was an ancient terror that rained down from above, and a silence so deep, one seemed to hear the dew distilled in the flasks of the night trickling down to earth. From that point forth, the explorers were enflamed by a kind of telluric rapture: it was a mad cutting-loose from all worldly ties, the soul’s release into the realm of marvels. Ah, but little did they suspect in their exalted state that soon, only three hundred metres away, the supernatural was to give the Saavedran adventurers quite a fright when, crossing the abyss on the wobbly plank, they would hear the tremulous croak of the toad-swans.
The first to show signs of poetic delirium was Adam Buenosayres. Stopping suddenly, he demanded silence:
— Hark! he exlaimed. Listen!
Six anxious faces surrounded him forthwith.
— What’s up? they asked in alarm.
— There! replied Adam, extending his arm toward the horizon. Listen to it! It’s the song of the River!
— What river? growled the jester.
— The Silver River! declaimed Adam, exhilarated. The eponymous river, as Ricardo Rojas would say. The river has raised his venerable torso over the waters. His brow is wreathed in water hyacinths. He sings a song of mud, his mouth full of mud, his beard dripping mud!1
General laughter was heard in the night. But the jester proffered a brutal curse:
— We’re done for now! he announced. The bard’s pissed as a newt!
But Adam insisted:
— He who has not heard the voice of the River will never understand the sadness of Buenos Aires. The sadness of clay in search of a soul.2 The idiom of the River!
Choked up by a fit of weeping, he couldn’t go on. His head fell against Schultz’s chest, there to be succoured by the astrologer’s gentle hand. (Schultz later avowed having experienced the distinct impression of clasping a broad-brimmed hat wracked by sobs.) Later, everyone would realize that a recent disappointment in love had provoked that unexpected tearful outburst.
— The problem isn’t with the river, the pint-sized hero began to say. If we resist the temptation to wax lyrical and just open our eyes…
But a flaccid, mollusc-like hand touched his back. It was the robust man who swayed like a blind boar.
— Hold it right there, he said, his breath an effluvium of caña quemada. I gather that Buenosayres was offering us a poetical-alcoholical-sentimental version of the River.
— I repeat: the problem is not the river, insisted the pint-sized fellow with an insolence far exceeding what might be expected from his scant bulk.
— And I maintain that you’re lying through your beard! shouted the robust man, blind to his opponent’s clean-shaven face.
This anachronistic apostrophe (a reminiscence, no doubt, from long-ago classical readings) stung the little man like a whip.
— Me, lying? he snarled. Now I’m gonna tell you the way I see Buenos Aires and its problems!
But he didn’t, because the jester loudly interrupted him.
— Cut him off! he implored in the darkness. In the name of divine Saturn, for the sake of the sacred night, shut that pipsqueak up before he gets started. Can’t you see he’s picked up the scent of the Spirit of the Earth? The sly fox is about to club us again with his bloody theory!
It was a call to order, an exhortation to prudence heeded by all. Especially when their guide, chomping on his foot-long cigarette holder, declared in no uncertain terms that he hadn’t dragged them way-the-hell-and-gone just so they could horse around; no, they were there to accomplish a heroic exploit that would leave them either beaten to a pulp or covered with laurels.3 Fortunately, the counsel of these two men prevailed, and the group set out once more, intrepid, but in a sullen silence that boded no good.
Among the heroes walked one who, miraculously, had not yet intervened in the dispute — the man with the short legs. True, he’d made his presence felt during the course of the argument with a few hostile grunts and two or three orchestral guffaws. But the fact that he hadn’t actually got his oar in was an unmistakable sign that some nocturnal genie had just possessed him. Unless, as was more likely, his apparent restraint was the handiwork of the Catamarca firewater for which the short-legged man had that night displayed a devotion bordering on the fanatical. But whatever the reason, our hero was now brightening up and showing clear signs of excitement. And then something remarkable occurred: he began passing cigarettes out to his comrades. This unheard-of act plunged the group into profound consternation.
— Am I dreaming? asked the jester.
— Miracle! It’s a miracle! answered the others.
Filled with humility, the man with the short legs attributed the miracle to the generosity of Mercury, the god, he said, who’d stood by him through his perennial tribulations. After this confession, he pulled out his automatic lighter and lit his cigarette. The wavering flame revealed his facial contours: a hawkish nose, two enormous fan-shaped ears, thick sensual lips, all betraying the son of that race once favoured by Jehovah and later scattered like ashes for having stained their cruel hands with the blood of a god. In truth, the man of short legs was Samuel Tesler, the illustrious philosopher of Villa Crespo.
Next, without breaking his stride Samuel Tesler used his lighter to illuminate in succession the faces of each of his friends, and so it was that the four figures not yet named emerged from anonymity. Strictly in the order of their enlightenment, they were the following: Luis Pereda, theoretician of criollismo, the robust man who sways like a wild boar gone blind; Arturo del Solar, activist of criollismo and acting leader of the seven; Franky Amundsen, radio host and animator, heretofore known as the man of the jesting voice; and the pipsqueak Bernini, sociologist, the one we’ve been calling pint-sized.
His act of illumination complete, Samuel Tesler shut his lighter, and the night closed in darker than ever. Great God! At that moment of overwhelming darkness, the philosopher decided to let fly one his unnerving guffaws. Hearing it, the adventurers trembled for the first time.
— What’s the Israelite laughing about? asked Franky Amundsen uncertainly.
— Was that a laugh? Pereda doubted. It sounded more like the squawk of a vulture.
Franky assured him it was a human laugh. Unless, he added, the Israelite had without warning turned into a vile bird of prey under cover of night — not such an unlikely metamorphosis, given the structure of his nose. But the philosopher retained his normal shape, with which he was well satisfied, thanks to his incredible powers of self-suggestion.
— I was laughing to myself, he declared, as I thought how woefully inadequate is our earthly sense of hearing. Just ten minutes ago, a poor sentimental slob, drunk on mythology, if not on something worse, tried to make us believe he was hearing the voice of the river.