This is what he said to the man now on the jetty, who was kicking at some dogs.
‘I’ve been looking for a mast… I thought perhaps that boom might do…’
‘It’s made of fir, same as the mast. You won’t find anything better…’
He lost a little heart when he looked into the man’s face. He wished he hadn’t stopped at all.
‘I just saw it and I wondered. It’s a boom in any case, and not a mast.’
‘I don’t know what it is you want. You say you want a mast.’
‘A small mast for this rowing boat.’
‘You won’t find anything better, then.’
He had his head on one side and he watched him with one eye half-closed. There was no doubt that he saw him as an innocent.
‘Depends on what you’re asking…’
‘Well, selling it like that wasn’t what I had in mind. I want to sell the whole boat, as a piece, and nothing else.’
‘I can’t see what a rotten boat is good for.’
‘A lot more than you seem to think… it isn’t in such bad shape.’
‘True; it could be worse… the thing is that I only want a small mast, not a boat.’
‘It doesn’t do me any good to sell it off like that. It serves no use at all. If you start taking bits off, then you’ll never sell the rest.’
‘You wouldn’t sell that boat even if you put bits on it.’
‘That’s only what you say.’
‘There’s nothing more to say, then, if you don’t want to sell.’
‘Fine by me as well. It doesn’t do me any good.’
‘All I want’s a little mast. Forget I even said it.’
Boga took his seat again, as if to start to row, and the man looked away and put his hands into his pockets. So Boga had to start to row.
This was when the man said:
‘And how much for the boom? Just for asking’s sake. I was curious to know what you think these things are worth. It seems you’re out of touch.’ He spoke in an affected tone to make light of the matter.
‘I don’t have a figure. It’s your boom to sell.’
‘But just in general terms. Tell me what you’d give, and in whatever place you’ve been to, for a boom that looks like this.’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘It’s a boom that’s made of fir.’
‘Whatever the wood.’
‘It’s not the same, you know that.’
‘Ok, let’s agree it’s gold, what is it you want for it?’
‘I hadn’t really thought. I want to sell the whole boat.’
‘You’ve told me that already.’
‘Well… I think… and just for argument, and giving the thing away… five hundred pesos.’
‘Yeah, and the rest. I could buy the boat for less than that.’
‘What do you mean! That boom is fir… any old stick would cost you double.’
‘If it wasn’t rotten.’
‘Now just hang on a minute!’
‘There’s nothing more to say.’
‘I won’t say a word.’
‘You were never going to sell it; am I right?’
‘I was going to sell the whole boat.’
‘Who’re you trying to fool!’
‘Not another word.’
‘Forget I spoke. See you around.’
He gathered up his oars.
‘Five hundred pesos! How much is that today?’ Now the man was shouting.
‘I haven’t got that much.’
‘Who are you trying to kid?’
‘I don’t have the money!’
The man scratched at his head.
‘In that case… I’ll take four.’
‘Too much.’
‘Are you mad? I’m doing you a favour.’
‘You can keep that kind of favour.’
‘So you want it as a present?’
‘I didn’t say that either.’
‘Four hundred pesos.’
‘It’s far too much… three hundred too.’
‘You’re bloody mad!’ He was spluttering and choking, and banging on the rail of the jetty.
‘Not another word. You can stick it up your arse!’
‘Stick your shitty three hundred pesos up your arse!’
‘I wasn’t going to pay you that.’
‘So how much was it then?’
‘Two hundred at the most.’
‘Yeah, don’t make me laugh!’
‘Do you want the money or not?’
He hadn’t for a moment thought to pay in cash. He suggested to the man that he work the money off, on whatever jobs there were. And so he stayed the two days that he’d planned on from the start, because, and in his turn, the man had haggled a bit from his side, getting him to do a little more than they’d agreed. But in the end they both came out ahead.
The days are even longer now, and if wasn’t for this wind that blows from the river, the heat would do you in. Boga turns his mind back to his fishing once again, but the enthusiasm’s gone. He knows now for certain that he can’t fish the dorado. Not, in any case, in the way that he would like to. And it saddens him a little. It will go up to the north, soon, that’s if it’s still around, if it ever swam these waters, and would that this splendid summer fish had never come down.
The condition of the lean-to was exactly as he’d left it, and he had a sense of coming back; it was the first time that he’d felt this. Someone else had been here, and not so long ago. Perhaps a man out fishing, perhaps Lefty La Rocca, who seems to turn up everywhere, as if one spoke of God. He looked down at the remnants of a fire that wasn’t his, some newspaper pages that had started turning yellow and an empty tin of corned beef lit up by the sun. Seeing it like this, the place seemed even lonelier, this place set on the river.
He finished fitting the boat that afternoon, as Froglia had pictured it all those years ago, and set out in the morning for the deep heart of the river. He rowed for a bit and after that he raised the sail. The wind was a northerly, blowing from the land, and he let it run him on to the Las Palmas Canal.
The wind had gone by midday, but he went down with the water to buoy K33, right at the bifurcation, passing very close to the hull of the Macá, sunk in 1924, the same year as the 7 Hermanos, which is a little before, except further out. It was swaying at the centre of a large, deep stain, and the buoy’s isolation made him feel a bit uneasy. These enormous, lonely buoys always have the same effect.
The sun was shining high and it seemed as if it watched him there. He took a cigarette and looked above him to his sail, feeling rather anxious at the rag there on his mast. So this is where he was, at the mercy of the river, on a little boat in which he’d placed a little too much faith, perhaps.
He came back with the evening, running with the south-east wind, fleet before the night.
This was how he spent what remained of the summer. He met a boat from time to time, and Lefty La Rocca twice. He slept out on the beach when there wasn’t any wind, lying down beside the boat. All he could accomplish was to draw large boats in the sand, or whittle points on sticks. He found he’d grown a beard such as he’d never had before, and looked a real castaway. Loneliness had matured on his face, and this life had made him brutish, in a way.
On nights when there was moonlight, and with a bit of breeze, he ventured on the river out to where he saw the channel lights. But one night he was caught out by the wind from the south-east, and was fighting with the river until the water threw him on the beach. The sail was torn up first and then the mast was snapped in half when the water knocked him down. The shreds of sail were flapping like a woeful bird’s wings overhead, and when they tore the sound was quite tremendous. He couldn’t see much of anything, just these couple of whitish patches flailing in the gloom, but he heard the water churning, boiling all around the boat, and twice he fell and rolled into the bottom. It seemed the boat had taken in a large amount of water. He felt the wish to stay there, in the bottom, like a just-caught fish. But he sat back on the seat and tried to hold things with the oars, knowing the river could knock him down again at any moment, and regardless of his skill, if it wanted. Now it even entertained him, fighting in the darkness and with not a hope of winning, pitching up and down in the night, as if he rode a beast, mounted on its giant back.