There he is, there he is. Two voices shouted, two juvenile voices. I turned to face my accusers and the brightness made me squint, but I saw them: the boy and girl from the earlier accident, now surrounded by a crew of adult men and women, all carrying white, knob-ended objects. That’s him, said a red-haired woman, bending down to speak to the girl. Yes, yes, that’s him. Without speaking another word, the knot of people moved toward me. I started to run. Look at that guy go, a voice shouted, maybe it’s not him. I broke left and right as often as I could, to confuse my pursuers, whose footsteps spattered in the dust and muck, along with their laughter and cries: I think he went this way, no, no, he’s over near the Alonsos, near the depot. The paths here were filled, as well, with wheelbarrow drivers, and they all broke into a unitary shout when I cut through their ranks: It’s him, it’s him, over here, hey, you guys, he’s here. These wheelbarrows all bore finished goods, and they all appeared to be moving to the shantytown’s northwest point, as I was. Blood leaked in two streams from my torn brow into my mouth.
The polyphonic noise of my pursuers accompanied me. They hadn’t yet caught up with me. I stumbled into a massive thoroughfare, dead straight, at the end of which I saw the houses subside and the named streets begin. Here, the rivulet deepened into a brook. I had to dash through it to keep away from my pursuers thronging to my left and right, who shouted out that I was there, I’d arrived, come on, I was there; or else they stopped in their tracks and pointed at me, their grins subtle but visible. As I neared the limit of the shantytown, my dread and my hope increased. I could no longer see or hear my pursuers. The wheelbarrow drivers did nothing to hinder my progress. Like all children, they enjoyed cruelty, and it was far more cruel to let me run than to stop me. Between the shantytown edge and the short bridge Mugica passed beneath spread a band of dry, dead ground. The moonlight on it picked out the metal rails of the train tracks crossing that empty zone. Now my hope bested my dread. I spat out blood and swiped my sleeve across my forehead.
At first I didn’t perceive the blow that felled me. Only as I stumbled into the tracks did I understand I had been struck down. My pursuers formed a wedge, now headed by Katalinski. Almost everyone was holding a club; the man who’d thrown his at me smiled smugly, his club lay, I saw, near my right foot. A bone, a dog’s femur bone. Since I could not stand, I examined it: the joint end had been drilled out and filled with lead. The warm wood of the ties pressed against my spine, and the cold steel of the rails pressed against my skull. Katalinski wore a broad, flat smile: the man who’d thrown the club at me widened his smirk. My other pursuers hooted and whistled, clapped and cheered as I tried to force myself to my feet. A long thrumming note from the rail caressed my scrotum and bowels. Go the fuck back to the University, shouted the club thrower. We have everything under control here. Katalinski’s smile hardened, vanished, and an attenuated, obliterating noise that I believed at first was a scream, my own torn voice, burst forth. Not a scream but a train’s warning whistle. My legs like all dead limbs possessed great dead strength, and so I tossed myself onto the earth beyond the track and dragged myself away. I even managed to bring the bone. The train’s headlamp was extinguished, a human figure leaned from an aperture in the engine cab, and the cars thundered past, a conjoined and oblong darkness. The passing train shielded me from my pursuers, true, but even its ordnance-like sound could not blot out their laughter.
I had just gathered my breath when hot light, a palpable force, struck my neck and ears. It came from behind me, it revealed the last cars of the thundering train (painted deep green, their doors open to the night streaming past) and my pursuers standing on the other side of the tracks, grinning, panting, their brows damp and their eyes indifferently clear. I turned my back on them to find the source of the light, but I could not, it blinded me. I stumbled to the concrete. Katalinski screamed: Come and get him, we found you a stray. His colleagues echoed the cry. My eyesight had returned, though orange nebulosities bloomed and died across my visual field. In the shadows along Salguero, I saw a night-blue van, with the sky-blue words MAN’S BEST FRIEND SOCIETY painted on its side panels.
Security officers were climbing out. One I recognized: Luxemburg. Her cap could not fully conceal her rich hair. Who’s in charge here, she shouted across the tracks to my pursuers. I am, cried Katalinski, and like I said you can see we found a stray for you. And please tell Olegario to make sure the fucking truck is on time in the morning. Luxemburg nodded, assured him she would. Is there anything else, ma’am, said Katalinski. You can go, she said. Yes, ma’am, Katalinski said. The redheaded woman next to him cried: Hey beautiful, what are you doing on that side, you should be over here with me. Mr. Pasternak, said Luxemburg. I didn’t answer. Mr. Pasternak, she repeated. The van driver (did I recognize him?) rushed up, overtook her. Answer her, he said. I raised the bone club. Mr. Pasternak, said Luxemburg. She drew her gun. Get on your knees, she said, put your hands on your head. I knelt and I placed my hands on my hot scalp.
14.
I USED TO DRINK but I had to give it up, Luxemburg said. Her colleague chuckled. Fuck you, he replied, you never gave it up. I gave it up in theory, said Luxemburg, which is all that’s required. The rearview mirror showed me their rigid grins. I did recognize her companion: Victor, the boy from the lecture hall. The student who had assaulted me and the female shouter. He was also wearing a sky-blue uniform now, and was armed with a gun, a baton, and a whistle. His nameplate read KLEMPERER (it appeared, reversed, in the mirror, and I was able to decipher it). Luxemburg lifted one hand to show she meant no harm. Don’t worry, Professor, you have nothing to fear, she said, not from him and not from me. Luxemburg you can’t trust, said Klemperer. She has Gypsy blood. That’s not what we call them anymore, said Luxemburg.
A cage was fitted to the rear of the van’s cargo area. Brown stains streaked the floor beneath it. Luxemburg asked if I was cold. I told her no. She twisted and leaned into the rear cabin and raised a thermos to my lips, lifting it so I could drink. It did not contain coffee, as I expected, but juice, papaya juice. To my own surprise, I drained the thermos without stopping. She held it up the whole time, Luxemburg watching me drink. You need to keep your energy up, she said. Klemperer slapped the radio. Luxemburg warned him not to break it or it would come out of his pay. Between them, on the front floor of the cab, a shovel lay rattling as we drove. We don’t earn much, she said to me, smiling slightly, we do this work for other reasons. Speak for yourself, said Klemperer.
They didn’t touch me, they didn’t beat me, they simply handcuffed me and lifted me from the ashen earth near the train tracks into the backseat of the van, locked the door, and started driving. I was too tired to respond with anything but compliance. Without a word, we passed into the null greenery that surrounds and insulates the southern capital. Klemperer, at last, found two radio stations that were broadcasting clearly and switched between them, news and jazz, back and forth, until Luxemburg told him to stop, to pick a fucking station and stay there. Klemperer ignored her and asked me, instead, if I wanted a cigarette. This I accepted. See, Professor, no hard feelings, said Klemperer. He twisted back — eyes on the road, asshole, said Luxemberg — and shook one from his pack. The golden word MACEDONIA encircled the filter. I took it in my lips. Luxemburg lit it. Smoke streamed toward the open windows.
The night dogs had gone, yes, but very few humans appeared on the streets. Almost none in the scrawny suburb we passed through. The buildings low and red, the pedestrians all old, neatly dressed in a clerical, timid way, their hair white or nonexistent, the outlines of their bodies blurred with age. At every door, with no exceptions, meat and water bowls and shrines above them. The shovel rattled on.