Boga gathered up his things and put them on the boat, then he jumped on with the Primus. He pulled his cap away and stuck his head into the water. It was pretty hot already, despite the early hour. The water was receding. The day was overcast, but with a cloud that doesn’t sadden you. A yellowish resplendence seemed to blossom from the river, unusual spills of light that moved in lazy fluctuations.
He considered for a moment abandoning the line and going on along the Sueco, going round that side to cross the Bajo del Temor. It would be a longer crossing, but what he really wanted was to sail along the coast, between the mouth of the Chaná and the Chanacito Stream. He remembered all the handsome trees along that stretch of shore, rising up behind the reeds. The high and spreading treetops in the last light of the day are a sight you don’t forget. It’s a place that gives the sense of being larger than it is, and a kind of quiet joy fills up your spirit when you see it. And then it’s good for fishing, there are several secret currents running in between the reeds that connect with little streams. The green veil of reeds hides the presence of these inlets, and some are marked because of this with long protruding stakes.
But then the open sea route, as well as being shorter, also has its special charm. And even by this way he’d get the chance to see the towering trees, straightening, or so it seems, and leaning back a little on the deep and brilliant sky.
He bailed out the water and ran quickly with the river down towards the open sea, driven by the pressure of a terrific current. He made use of this to smoke a cigarette, allowing the boat to drift along, correcting his direction from time to time with a quick blow from the oar.
He let the boat run on when he came onto the sandbank, until he reached the point where he thought he’d set the line. The water was still high and the reeds were barely visible. He couldn’t find the line. Even with no trace of it, he spent a good while looking, for the simple joy of finding it, and, in another way, to quarrel with the river. The truth is that all feelings are alien to the river, but it often seems motivated by a mood that’s very gloomy.
The river is magnificent and man feels mysteriously drawn to it. It’s the only thing to say.
This man stands by its waters and looks out across its murmuring vastness with nostalgia, as if he had lost something very dear to him and absolutely primordial, here in the middle of this river that resembles eternity. It’s this, perhaps, that makes him think the river is good.
But the truth is, underneath, this river is often devilishly astute and grim and even mean.
Its men, this river’s men, this man who stands here now and is looking at its waters, his big eyes of a dying fish that hang above the water like two lenses in the air, these men are like the river in every way. It’s why they still survive. It’s why they seem so aged, so distant and remote. They don’t love the river, exactly, but couldn’t live without it. They are as slow and as constant as the river. More than this, these men are as indifferent as the river. They seem to understand they form a part of a stubborn whole, that goes its way inspired by a certain kind of fate. And nothing makes them rise up. When the river wrecks their boat and their cabins and themselves. And this is why they, too, seem bad.
After anchoring the boat, he stripped away his clothes and threw himself into the water. Part of it was feeling that he wanted to take a dip. But he was sure he’d find the line as well.
He dived down several times, but he didn’t have any luck.
Diving in the reeds can be a devilish thing to do. The feeling when the stems chafe on your body is repugnant.
He went down for a final time and hit upon the line. He held it in his hand. It seemed the line was slack. He used his knife to cut the thread and got back to the surface with his final gasp of air. He dragged the line behind him as he swam towards the boat. It offered small resistance. There would be nothing on the hook, he thought.
He pulled the line onto the boat. It lacked the last six metres and the last three hooks as well.
He rowed all through the morning. It was only when he came close to the shore and his arrival that he stopped, towards midday. He would have made the journey quicker if he’d had a different boat, but he didn’t mind the time it took, as long as he was there before the night.
The weather turned out splendid and the river barely rippled at the gentle south-east breeze. He liked to take his time along this section of the river, so shallow yet so wide. He felt as if he’d journeyed on a sea to reach this place, from somewhere that was infinitely vast and very deep.
He stopped his rowing several times. In truth the boat now travelled with the momentum it had gathered, encouraged by the pushing of the current. There it was, a small mark that was dark and rather complex, as if drifting in the air. Then the smell of the river and the sighing of the water, turning around him.
He’d felt a little chilly after diving in the river, but now he felt quite drowsy in the sun. But only in his body, as something that was more intimate was always keeping watch, glad eyes looking out across the waters and the heavens, at the long line of the shore, as if from the veranda of a solitary house, inside its shadows.
And now he saw the trees, just a little way behind him to the right. At first off in the distance and then impossibly close, isolated somehow, and casting their estrangement at the sky and on the river.
He stopped close to the shore and drank some matés at midday. If he got to Punta Morán before the middle of the afternoon, and went a little way into the Chanacito Stream, he might meet the provisions boat. If he had no luck with that, he’d go the following morning all the way up the Baldozas Stream, and back to the Chaná along the Piccardo Canal. The bakery is there, and a couple of holiday camps. There were certain things he needed to buy. He felt the wish, for once, to eat like other people ate, but still it wasn’t a craving, and even if he got the chance, he wasn’t sure at all he’d find much pleasure in the eating. It was rather that he sensed he was going to feel a genuine need to eat something more substantial, and within the next few hours. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d ever worried about before, despite, and when he got the chance, being able to put his food away with very little fuss. But up to now his body had resisted with a will on the maté and the sea bread and the other bits and pieces. It’s the best thing you can do when you’re wandering the river.
He got to Punta Morán just as the light seemed to be climbing to the summit of the sky, and many hours later than the middle of the afternoon. He’d got a bit held up back in the inlet of the Ancho, and had to bail out water on a couple of occasions. In any case, it wasn’t that he’d settled on an hour for his arrival, and thinking on it now, it made him glad to arrive just then, as the dusk was coming in. It was rather like entering a temple, something of that kind.
Ever since the dawn, and like the circling of bees, he’d had, until a certain point, the murmur of the water and the sighing of the wind in his ears. This was on the open sea, and while its drone continued, he’d felt far out at sea and disconnected from the shore, however close it seemed.
But all at once it ended and he entered in this calm, in a second, and the River Plate was far away, infinitely distant, gleaming above the stern as if it formed a separate sea.
The water is much deeper here, much calmer. At its mouth the Chanacito gives the sense of being a lake. When sailing down the coast, the changes as you move into its mouth are very gradual, and you find you’re well inside before you see them all around you. The shoreline on the starboard side is bare and prone to flooding, but on the other shore there is a darkened line of trees that grows increasingly dense. The water on this side, and at this hour of day, seems very deep and rather grim. The impression is of a place both gloomier and more silent; it gives the sense of some enormous amphitheatre. And only now you’re here do you once more feel the islands — they’ve always been in sight and yet they’ve always seemed far off. Far off in an uncommon way.