On each side of the dusty road, against the tents, the ranks of prisoners sat on the ground and waited, hands tied behind their backs so they'd give nobody any trouble. One would occasionally unburden himself with an oath, another murmur the beginning of the Lord's Prayer; almost all were in a state verging on stupefaction. Naturally, they couldn't smoke. They no longer cared about the race, but they all watched.
"When they slit my throat, they're going to grab me by the hair and pull my head back, too," said one man, as though to ally himself with the centers of attention.
"Yeah, but you'll be along with the herd," replied another.
"Along with you," the first man spit.
A sergeant drew the line across the road with a saber. Silveira's and Cardoso's hands had been untied so they wouldn't have to run off-balance. They stood more than five yards apart. They put their toes against the line; some of the officers called out for them not to let them down—they were counting on them. A great deal of money was riding on each man.
Silveira drew Nigger Nolan, whose grandparents had doubtlessly been slaves of the captain's family, and so bore his name; Cardoso drew the regular executioner, an older man from Corrientes who always patted the condemned man on the back and told him: "Buck up, friend; women suffer more than this when they have a baby."
Their torsos straining forward, the two anxious men did not look at each other.
Nolan gave the signal.
The part Nigger Nolan had been given to play went to his head, and he overacted—he slashed Silveira's throat from ear to ear. The man from Corrientes made do with a neat slice. The blood gushed, though, from both men's throats; they stumbled a few steps and then fell headlong. As he fell, Cardoso stretched out his arms. He had won, but he likely never knew that.
Guayaquil*
Now I shall never see the peak of Higuereta mirrored in the waters of the Golfo Plácido, never make my journey to the Western State, never visit that library (which I, here in Buenos Aires, picture in so many different ways, though it must have its own precise existence, contain its own lengthening shadows) where I was to unriddle the handwriting of Bolivar.
As I reread the foregoing paragraph in order to compose the next one, I am surprised by its tone at once melancholy and pompous. It may be that one cannot speak about that Caribbean republic without echoing, however remotely, the monumental style of its most famous historiographer, Capt. Józef Korzeniowski; but in my case there is another reason—that first paragraph was dictated by the intention, deep within me, to imbue a mildly painful and altogether trivial incident with a tone of pathos. But I will relate what happened with absolute honesty; that, perhaps, will help me understand it.
After all, when one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.
The incident happened to me last Friday in this same room I am writing in now, at this same hour of the afternoon (though today is somewhat cooler). I know that we tend to forget unpleasant things; I want to record my conversation with Dr. Eduardo Zimmermann (of our sister university to the south) before it is blurred by forgetfulness. My memory of it now is still quite vivid.
The story can be better understood, perhaps, with a brief recounting of the curious drama surrounding certain letters written by Simón Bolívar, "the Liberator of the Americas." These letters were recently exhumed from the files of the distinguished historian don José Avellanos, whose Historiade cincuenta años de desgobierno["A History of Fifty Years of Misrule"] was itself initially believed lost (under circumstances which no one can fail to be familiar with), then discovered and published in 1939 by his grandson, Dr. Ricardo Avellanos. To judge by references I have gathered from various publications, most of these letters are of no great interest, but there is one, dated from Cartagena on August 13,1822, in which Bolivar is said to give the details of his famous meeting in Guayaquil with Gen. José de San Martín.*One cannot overstress the value of a document in which Bolivar reveals, even if only partially, what took place at that encounter. Ricardo Avellanos, a staunch opponent of his country's current government, refused to surrender the correspondence to the Academy of History; he offered it, instead, to several Latin American republics. Thanks to the admirable zeal of our ambassador, Dr. Melaza, the government of the Argentine was the first to accept Avellanos' disinterested offer. It was decided that a delegate would be sent to Sulaco, the capital of our neighbor country, to make copies of the letters and publish them here. The chancellor of our university, where I am professor of Latin American history, was so kind as to recommend my name to the minister of education as the person to carry out that mission; I also obtained the more or less unanimous support of the National Academy of History, of which I am a member. Just as the date was set for my interview with the minister, we learned that the University of the South (which I prefer to think was unaware of these decisions) had proposed the name of Dr. Zimmermann.
Dr. Eduardo Zimmermann, as the reader perhaps may know, is a foreign-born historian driven from his homeland by the Third Reich and now an Argentine citizen. Of his professional work (doubtlessly estimable), I know at first hand only an article in vindication of the Semitic republic of Carthage (which posterity has judged through the writings of Roman historians, its enemies) and an essay of sorts which contends that government should function neither visibly nor by appeal to emotion. This hypothesis was thought worthy of refutation by Martin Heidegger, who proved decisively (using photocopies of newspaper headlines) that the modern head of state, far from being anonymous, is in fact the protagonistes, the khoragos, the David whose dancing (assisted by the pageantry of the stage, and with unapologetic recourse to the hyperboles of the art of rhetoric) enacts the drama of his people.
Heidegger likewise proved that Zimmermann was of Hebrew, not to say Jewish, descent. That article by the venerable existentialist was the immediate cause of our guest's exodus and subsequent nomadism.
Zimmermann had no doubt come to Buenos Aires in order to meet the minister; the minister's personal suggestion, made to me through the intermediary of a secretary, was that, in order to forestall the unpleasant spectacle of our country's two universities disputing for the one prize, it be myself who spoke to Zimmermann, to apprise him of where the matter stood. Naturally, I agreed. When I returned home, I was informed that Dr. Zimmermann had phoned to tell me he was coming that evening at six. I live, as most people know, on Calle Chile.* It was exactly six o'clock when the doorbell rang.
With republican simplicity, I opened the door to Dr. Zimmermann myself and led him toward my private study. He paused to look at the patio; the black and white tiles, the two magnolia trees, and the wellhead drew his admiration. He was, I think, a bit nervous. There was nothing particularly striking about him; he was a man in his forties with a rather large head. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses, which he would occasionally lay on the table and then put back on again. When we shook hands, I noted with some satisfaction that I was the taller, but I was immediately ashamed of my smugness, since this was not to be a physical or even spiritual duel, but simplya mise aupoint, a "getting down to brass tacks," as some might say, though perhaps a rather uncomfortable one. I am a poor observer, but I do recall what a certain poet once called, with ugliness befitting the thing described, his "inelegant sartorial arrangements."