— You’re pretending to sleep, I say.
She shivers.
— Don’t shiver, I say. Don’t shiver because I know you’re more awake than me and you’re trying to piss me off.
I put my hand on her shoulder and start shaking her. Suddenly she sits up on the edge of the bed. She looks at me. Her hair is falling on her face and her eyes are narrowed.
— How are we going hunting if it’s raining out? she says.
— Who says it’s raining? I say.
— It’s been raining all week, she says. Think it’s going to stop today, just like that?
— It wasn’t raining last night, I say.
She walks out and comes right back in, leaving the door to the courtyard open. A gray shimmer filters through.
— No. It’s not raining, she says. What about instead of going hunting we stay home? she says. Are we really going to pack everything up and head out like a bunch of gypsies?
— I wasn’t farting around when I asked for the truck, I say. I had to ask the foreman for it. When we have the truck for a day, we’re not staying home.
She shrugs and walks out again. I’m lying face up. There’s the ceiling, in the bedroom, which the gray light filtering in from the courtyard illuminates slightly more. The joists crisscross under the zinc sheets. The girl comes in.
— We’re going hunting, I say. We’re going to Colastiné, and we’re bringing back a big pile of ducks.
— Are we going in the canoe? she says.
— Sure we are, I say.
The girl runs out. I sit up on the edge of the bed. Now the oval mirror reflects me back. I get up and dress. Then I go out to the courtyard. The light is gray. She comes out of the bathroom.
— Are you going to shave? she says.
— No, I say. It’s the day of the worker. I decide if I shave or not.
— I’m not going out if you don’t shave, she says.
— I just told you it’s the day of the worker, I say.
She leaves. The courtyard is bare, there’s no weeds. There’s the black stumps of the trees I pulled out. I’ve smoothed out the ground where the trees had been. What’s left in the courtyard is the bare ground, the solid brick wall, and the two mutilated trunks. I go to the bathroom and do my business and then I wash my face and comb my hair. I go back to the courtyard.
— Can I drink some mate before we leave?
There’s the two black tree trunks I pulled out. The rain’s been falling on them for a week. The ground has been smoothed out by the rain. There’s not a single furrow. There’s just the bare courtyard now.
— Can I or can’t I? I say.
— I can’t do a million things at once, says her voice from the kitchen.
— Do I have to make it myself, then? I say.
She looks out the kitchen door.
— I’m not your maid, she says. She’s holding a package wrapped in newspaper. She’s just finishing wrapping it up.
— I’ve told you before I don’t like you wrapping food up in the paper, I say.
She throws the package at me. It hits my arm, and the paper breaks and four loaves of bread fall on the bricks and mud in the courtyard. She wants me to kill her. That’s what she wants. She stares at me furiously from the kitchen. The fury is just in her eyes, because her mouth is contorted into a weird grimace, laughing. That’s what she wants. I stoop and pick up the bread. The one that fell in the dirt is muddy, and it’s left a mark on the ground. I throw the bread into the air, away from the house. The bread sails through the gray air, awkwardly, darkening as it moves off, and then it disappears behind the wall.
— Easy, Gringa, I say.
I gather up the paper, but it’s ruined, useless. I go to the kitchen. She comes in after. Then the girl comes in. I wrap up the loaves and put them in a canvas bag. Then I go get the shotgun and the cartridges, which I set out the night before. The shotgun’s base was removed. It’s heavy. I throw it over my shoulder and pick up the cartridge belt and all the rounds. Back in the kitchen, she and the girl are making some bundles with dish cloths and packing them in the canvas bag. I see they’ve put the kettle on the flame and that the mate and the straw are on the stove. I leave the cartridge belt and the rounds on the table and fill the mate with yerba.
When the kettle starts to steam, I take it from the flame and carry it to the courtyard. I lean the shotgun against the wall and sit down in the low chair in the corridor. They go by with the things, packing the truck. She’s in front, with the bag, and the girl follows with a package. Now the courtyard, where they were, is empty. And it’s empty at the back end except for the black stumps I threw there, soaked from the week of rain. There’s just enough space between them for a person to lay down, the crown of the head touching one and the base of the feet on the other. She reappears from the street.
— Are we going or not? she says.
We’re going, I say. I put down the mate, inside the inverted lid to the kettle. I grab the shotgun from the wall and get up.
— Did you take the cartridges? I say.
— Yes, they’re in there, she says.
There’s the truck, in the street. The girl is waiting in the cab, looking straight ahead, through the windshield. There’s the railroad bed, intersecting the street, blinding it. There’s trees and ditches on both sides, and there’s the houses clustered in between the trees and beyond them the open land.
She gets in the truck and the girl sits on her lap. I cross the little bridge and get in the cab from the other side. Reddish mud filters up through the rubble they’ve used to pave the street. It stains my shoes.
I start the engine and we leave. We make an awkward U-turn at the corner and drive in the opposite direction until the Avenida del Oeste. We take the avenue to the boulevard and turn toward the suspension bridge. There’s no one out. At the mouth of the bridge there’s a gray sentry box. The structure vibrates as we cross. There’s an echo.
— It’s going to start raining any minute, she says.
We leave the bridge and turn onto the smooth blue road. It’s divided by a white line that shifts now to the left of the truck, now to the right, now between the front wheels.
— Hand me the gin, I say.
— I said hand me the gin, I say.
— I’m telling you to give me that bottle, I say.
Finally she unscrews the metal cap and gives me the bottle. I slow down and take a drink, straight from the mouth. She holds on to the cap. I hand back the bottle, not looking away from the road, and then I put both hands back on the wheel. We cross a bridge. Its iron and cement pillars slide backward quickly, flickering. She takes a drink from the mouth of the bottle too, then she caps it.
— You won’t even see the ducks, from drinking, she says.
I don’t say anything.
— Are we going in the canoe, Papá? says the girl.
— Sure we are, I say.
— Shut your mouth, she says.
— Let the girl talk, I say. She’s not bothering anybody.
There’s another bridge. Again the iron and cement pillars slide backward quickly, flickering, and the white line stops when the bridge starts and starts again when the bridge stops.
There’s the marshes around us, with their inlets and their squat trees and the wild grasses that don’t seem to move. The empty marshes, till the land touches the sky. The flat inlets that don’t even glimmer. On both sides, until the eyes get tired of looking. I press my foot down on the pedal, until it touches the floor.
— Thirty years old, this truck, and it runs like a clock, I say. It’s got some pickup in first. The ones they make today are tin cans.
— There’s a flock of whistling ducks, she says.