— Are you talking about me? shrieked Adam in the darkness.
— Quiet! said Franky. The Israelite’s got the floor.
— What he’s got, shot back Adam in a booze-thickened voice, is three sheets to the wind.
At this unjust accusation, the philosopher croaked something between a hiccup and a laugh.
— And why not? he said. Just as Anaxagoras was a sober man among drunks, I am a drunk among the sober.
— Well said, my son! exclaimed Franky, embracing Samuel. The confession honours you. That Catamarca firewater is the elixir of sincerity.
— Who said anything about firewater? retorted Samuel, stung to the quick. I’m referring to a higher state, the inebriation of Dionysus.
But Adam Buenosayres had got his dander up; he was struggling in the arms of Schultz and swearing to teach that Jew a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.
— Lemme go! he bellowed like a street bully. We gotta settle this right now.
— He’s soft in the head! said Samuel scornfully. Only a moron could cast the River Plate in a mythological mould. Bah! It’s a dead river, a cocktail of water and mud.4
At these odious words, the adventurers bristled with indignation.
— Hey, whoah there! thundered Pereda menacingly.
— Damnation! whinnied Franky. He’s insulted our Father River!
— What’d he say? shouted Adam. Just a minute here! I’ll teach that no-account bum!
Discord reigned once more among the group, and Del Solar cursed the hour when Franky Amundsen had included that pair of madmen in the expedition to Saavedra. Franky, in response, solemnly avowed that only the desire for self-improvement had moved him to solicit the company of the neo-sensitive poet and the illustrious philosopher, and that their drunkenness was more apparent than real, since thanks to them his eyes had been opened to a vast horizon of hitherto unknown wisdom. As for Luis Pereda, who had been following the details of the Buenosayres-Tesler conflict from a strictly criollista perspective, he thought the two champions ought to settle their differences in a knife fight, though he admitted it wouldn’t be easy to find such weapons in that place, at that hour. But then he suggested the two taitas have it out with pen-knives (and he happened to be carrying one with a bone handle, which he generously offered to any taker); a fight to the death, he added, was not strictly necessary, for a traditional slash across the face, or from ear to ear, was more than enough to salve a Christian’s honour, though it were caked an inch thick in filth.5
Fortunately, at the height of the altercation, harmony was restored when Samuel unexpectedly donned the mantle of equanimity, an act that would subsequently earn him much praise, declaring he hadn’t had the slightest intention of offending his friend Buenosayres, for whom he felt — and was not ashamed to admit it — an absolutely indestructible fraternal devotion, notwithstanding the gaping lacunae he couldn’t help noticing in his philosophical formation. For his part, Adam — who never failed to respond to those ardent calls of human cordiality — didn’t even wait for Tesler to finish his apology before rushing toward him with outstretched hand. The sight of them embracing in the very gut of the night was enough to melt a heart of stone. Their literally intoxicating breaths commingled. All of a sudden Samuel broke down weeping like a Magdalene, imprecating himself as an ignoble drunk who’d just insulted his best friend the poet and his best poet friend. Adam, sobbing his heart out, swore up and down that Samuel wasn’t drunk but fresh as a rose, and that it was he, Adam Buenosayres, who deserved the dishonour for having drunkenly offended a man of genius who busted his ass night and day studying the most abstruse sciences. Samuel persisted in his self-accusation, Adam rebutted him again, and since neither was about to give way in that generous challenge, it wasn’t long before they were at loggerheads again and very nearly came to blows.
The imperious invitation of their leader, Del Solar, to get moving again cut short the two men’s effusions. The expeditionaries obeyed, responding instinctively to the worry in the guide’s voice. Something had happened. Shortly beforehand, wanting to get away from the odious squabble, Del Solar had resolutely set off into the night. Once alone, he noticed a dog barking his head off nearby, and all the canines for twenty miles around were starting to yap in response. Judicious guide, he realized that the group’s hullabaloo was putting them in danger of arousing the wrath of the wilderness. He called Luis Pereda over and confided his fears. The two of them peered anxiously into the dark, and horrible shapes seemed to be sliding ominously toward them. Their hair stood on end. Del Solar cried out in alarm, and Pereda began to whistle the tango “La Chacarita.”6 This was a sure sign of distress, for he hardly ever whistled it, except at night in certain barrios, La Paternal or Villa Soldati,7 walking the streets deep in meditation on the future incarnations of the Buenos Aires taita.
Brought to heel by their guide, the seven men advanced in silence now, eyes peering left and right. A strange ill humour was coming over the group, and a certain nervousness, which peaked when Samuel began to speak again. The philosopher, grave and mysterious, intoned that it didn’t surprise him that the night was getting aggressive, for its silence had been profaned by their vain and puerile chatter. For a while now, he added, certain clues — pointless to reveal them, given the abysmal ignorance of his audience — had given him to understand that they were in a sacred place, whose dangerous nature he couldn’t divulge for now. However, just to give them a taste of what was in store, he warned that the dog barking in the night might well be Cerberus, guardian of the gates of Hades. The impressionable men did not find his observations at all reassuring, and they let him know as much. To top it off, Bernini, carried away perhaps by some folkloric reminiscence, alarmingly suggested that the dogs, whose barking was growing louder, might be chasing a lobisome, or werewolf, the legendary seventh son who used to leave his human form and morph into a barking monster to prowl the night in search of his unspeakable banquet.8 But eventually Franky Amundsen, his urbanity outraged, solemnly declared that he pissed on the sacred silence and on the venerable night and, moreover, on the very spot they were traversing just now; and as for the scary monster, he went on, everyone should just relax, because in case of attack all they had to do was remove the shoe from one of the philosopher’s feet, peal off his sock, and toss it straight at the monster’s snout — an extravagant procedure, if you like, but infallible and authorized by many classical tales. Now, whether by sheer coincidence or as a result of that threat, it so happened that as soon as Franky finished speaking, the ghostly dog stopped barking. The group’s dread turned to astonishment, astonishment gave way to relief, and relief spawned the glory of Franky Amundsen, who thenceforth was held to be a great enchanter and conjuring expert. Unfortunately, that glory quickly lost its lustre when Franky, carried away by excessive pride, formally gave notice of his intention to put the boots to all the ghouls of the night, whether they came at him one at a time or all at once.
— Recklessness! exclaimed the philosopher in metaphysical indignation. You bunch of animals, do you realize where we are?
— Up the bloody creek without a paddle! answered a grouchy Pereda.
— Hmm! mused Samuel. And what if this were a battlefield?
His words were met by impatient growls and incredulous jeers. But the philosopher raised an imperious arm skyward.