I fall asleep. When I wake up it’s three fifteen and I barely have time to wash my face before leaving for the courthouse. I park the car in the rear courtyard, and when I get to my office the secretary is there with a thin, blond gorilla, waiting for me. He says he’s Fiore’s lawyer. “He’s sequestered,” I say. I have him sit down in a chair in front of my desk. “They’ve got him in some awful room in the precinct,” he says. “I’m sorry,” I say, “but that has nothing to do with me.” “Yes, I suppose not,” he says. We’re silent. I hear Ángel’s voice in the secretary’s office. He comes in and shakes my hand. I introduce him to the lawyer. “As soon as he gives a statement, the sequestration will be lifted,” I say. The thin, blond gorilla with a blond beard stands up and leaves, saying he’ll be back in an hour. I tell Ángel that nothing can be published about the inquest, and not to say a word or take notes of any kind. The secretary comes in and says they’re bringing the prisoner. Suddenly, the murderer appears in the doorway. His beard is several days old, his eyes are dull, and his hair is a complete mess. The guard follows. He gives him a soft push into the chair, then he hands me the police docket and leaves. The murderer looks out the window, from which a gray light comes in. “Your name is Luis Fiore?” I ask. He nods. Then he looks me straight in the face and says Judge and then he says something or other and jumps out the window. There’s a shattering of glass and then nothing. I get up and walk toward the corridor, moving quickly. Before reaching the door to the office, I collide with the secretary and push him aside. I go down the stairs and out the front door. A group of people has gathered around the crushed, bloody body. The blond gorilla who was in my office a minute before approaches me. “How could this happen?” he says. “He jumped,” I say. “He’s dead,” he says. “You know this is terribly serious, Your Honor.” “Come to my office,” I say. At the entrance to the courthouse we pass Ángel. He says something or other and I say something and keep going. The blond gorilla walks quickly, forcing me to keep pace. He goes straight to the elevator and we go up to the third floor. We cross the corridor and go into the office. The secretary has disappeared. We’re standing in the middle of the office. He says, “I was standing at the bus stop, and I saw him fall from up here. I could hear the sound.” “Typical for a falling body,” I say. Suddenly, he slaps me. “That was the body of a person,” he says, staring at me with his burning, sky blue eyes. “That’s your opinion,” I say. “You’re a coward,” he says, and he leaves.
Cold air and rain enter through the hole that used to be covered in glass. When the secretary returns I tell him to take care of everything and not to bother me until the next day. “They may want to take a statement today, Judge,” he says. “Well, they won’t find me, in any case,” I say. “Just do as I say: have everything ready for tomorrow morning.” Then I leave, go down the stairs, and cross the checkerboard lobby. The black and white tiles are clean and polished and the lobby is empty. I cross the corridors on the first floor and go out to the rear courtyard. It’s getting dark, and it’s raining. I turn onto the Avenida del Sur, heading east, with the Plaza de Mayo to my right, and then turn at the corner, where the green light allows me through. Then I leave the government buildings and the convent behind and park in front of my house. I hang the raincoat in the bathroom, walk to the study, and turn on the desk lamp. I pour myself a whiskey and sit down with the notebook and the novel open on the desk, then I pick up one of the pens. The dictionary is closed. The telephone rings. It’s the same voice as always. It insults me and laughs and then it’s gone. It hangs up and I do too. I work until after midnight. I underline a last sentence—You call yesterday the past? — and go to bed.
I lie down in utter darkness, face up.
At first nothing happens.
Then, almost inaudibly, the crackling begins. But it’s more than a wheat field burning, wide as it is. It’s a much deeper crackling, a much larger fire. I see hills, cities, plains, jungles burning, slowly incinerating, the even flames extending like a yellow blanket over the surface of the planet, devouring it. And nothing is heard because there’s no one to observe it, to know this giant fireball that’s burning silently and spinning slowly in the blackness, which it mars with a weak glow. Sometimes the faraway sound of an explosion echoes, at some vague point on the surface, arriving completely silently, or brief sparks from a short burst are perceived. But perceive is wrong, because there’s no one to perceive anything. The horde of gorillas that rose laboriously from the nothing, clinging to the dried crust with its teeth and claws, has returned to the nothing, without a sound. It was like some awful mirage, a sickening nightmare crashing against the motionless rocks in the middle of a bright and maddening space. I see the ball of fire spin, and then the fire dies down and goes out completely; the first clear breezes form thin whirlwinds with the cold ashes of the finally pacified horde. The white dust sparkles in the air, in the weak light of a dead sun.
It’s almost dawn when I get up. I go out. It’s raining. I haven’t slept. I approach the first corner slowly, then turn right. The headlights illuminate the shifting masses of fog that condense as they move away from the car. Iridescent circles of water take shape around the lights. The fragmented trees in the Plaza de Mayo extend their foliage through the white clouds. Streetlights reflect off the dense, shifting masses. The wiper blades rhythmically skim the windshield surface. I turn north on San Martín, then on the boulevard, to the suspension bridge. Water pours from the gray sentry box at the mouth of the bridge, its painted wood walls barely visible. On the old waterfront I see, through the blurry right side window, the concrete railing with its concrete balustrades repeating infinitely and sliding backward. They’re wet, surrounded by fog. For a moment I have the feeling of not moving, of being completely motionless. All I feel is the monotone hum of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the wiper blades on the glass, where drops collide and explode into strange, fleeting shapes. Suddenly the monotony of the engine is torn; I hear two or three brief explosions that shake the car. Then the explosions continue, and the hum is replaced by a series of explosions and the car starts to slow down. I steer it to the right, coasting on its momentum. Then there’s nothing. The wiper blades stop and the car rolls a few meters farther and stops as well. I look at the gauge. The red needle indicates an empty tank. I stop the engine. The sun is coming up, but the wet fog surrounds the car so closely that all I can see is the inert body of the car and the slowly drifting whitish masses that have erased the waterfront, if there really is a waterfront, and which completely obscure my vision, if — beyond the fog — there really is anything for my eyes to see.
MAY
WHOEVER FINDS ME FIRST SHOULD KILL ME.
I wake up. My eyes are closed. I’m on my side, with the sheet to my shoulder. When I open my eyes, there’s the light. It’s gray, filtering in through the blinds. There’s the bureau and the oval mirror. She’s in bed, awake, with her back to me. I can hear her breathing.
— Shouldn’t you be up already, getting things together if we’re really going, I say.
— You’re pretending to be asleep, I know it, I say.
I turn over, face up. There’s the ceiling above me in a shadow that the rays of light coming in through the cracks in the blinds don’t reach. I turn toward her. Her back is to me. Her shoulders rise and fall as she breathes.