That was when they started at a sound that was much quieter, much closer. The man had taken out the clip of bullets from the pistol. He cocked the gun and fired it and then replaced the clip.
The scrub-hen squawked, closer now.
The man was just in front of him, resting against the tree with the steel cable tied around it. He looked into his face, hard and wide awake and somehow foreign to his body, as if it floated over it, removed from what was going on, from all of the activity and feelings in his body, gathered up and fixed on just one single point, perhaps on just one instant.
He got to his feet, took a look up at the light and slowly went over to him.
‘You’re going to go across to the other side with Rubia.’
He lifted his gaze with annoyance, and tried to read this face that was lost inside the shadows.
‘I’d rather take the little feller.’
The man looked at him in silence.
‘Whatever you say.’
‘I can understand him.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘When are we going across?’
‘Right now… I don’t mind.’
The man got to his feet.
‘It seems to me we need another one of those,’ Boga said. He referred to the Beretta, which the man held with the barrel pointing down towards the ground.
‘Perhaps we do. We’ll be all right.’
The man’s words came with absolute assurance. He always spoke like this. And then Boga was surprised by a fleeting sense of hatred. Something short, intense and stabbing. One gun didn’t amount to much. The man had thought it through. He preferred that no one else should have a weapon. He’d decided for them all and he’d decided he preferred to put the rest of them at risk.
‘It isn’t enough,’ he said after a while, returning to the matter.
‘You’re still going on about that?’
‘We could find ourselves in trouble.’
‘Don’t be getting scared.’
‘I’m not getting scared… but it could happen.’
‘It isn’t going to happen.’
He wasn’t one to argue much. When all was said and done, he should have thought about it earlier. The man knew this as well, because he looked at him with infinite annoyance.
‘What’s brought this on now?’ he said.
He shrugged.
He didn’t even know what he’d got into, in reality. The man had something in his head and now he was involved. He couldn’t go against things now they’d gone as far as this. The man had pinned his hopes on him. And even if it meant his life, he didn’t count for much, he was a secondary element, without the right to fail, because the man was looking at him with infinite annoyance.
‘I’m thinking that it’s best if the three of you go over,’ said the man.
He’d been thinking the whole time.
‘I’ll be just fine with the feller.’
‘It’ll be better this way.’
They pulled the dinghy from the ditch and put six bottles into it. The dog stood and waited until Rubia had settled, and then, after many calculations, jumped aboard and ran up to the bow, while the man gave them instructions, crouching on the bank.
‘When I give the word, you pull the cable tight.’
‘We can pull it tight right now.’
‘No, when I tell you.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll give a whistle.’
‘Make sure you give us time.’
‘Don’t you worry yourself.’
‘Yeah, I know…’
‘The moment that you see it snag, start to throw the bottles. Exactly as I’m telling you. Not before the boat snags, if you do they’re going to throttle up and anything could happen.’
‘It could work out even better.’
‘No, I’ve done the thinking.’
‘It could though…’
‘The Caporale has a big engine. Please, just as I’m telling you.’
This was when the dog jumped on the boat.
‘I won’t throw any bottles if there isn’t any need to. If you all hit the target then there won’t be any need… and, if it comes to that, if I have to throw them, I won’t need to light them first… you get what I’m saying? It’s for you to keep them busy so they’ll leave this side exposed.’
‘I can’t see how we’re going to get the stuff out from the boat if we burn it,’ Rubia said.
‘The tank is set in the bow,’ the man explained, and with his tone a little snappy. ‘What you have to do is land the bottles in the cockpit. You can let things run their course once the fire starts at the bow. They’ll try to moor the boat before they land it on the bank. They’ve got no space to turn in. And anyway, it wouldn’t help… they’ll try to save the things and so they’ll break in through the hull and then they’ll drag it onto the bank, so it won’t sink more than necessary. Not onto your bank, though. They can take you on from this side… at least, that’s what they’ll think… they won’t know that I’m waiting for them…’
After that, the silence.
‘I don’t know that it’s going to run as smooth as that,’ said Rubia.
‘I’ve thought it through,’ the man said. ‘I’ve gone over every detail. Stop worrying so much.’
‘I just don’t know… and after what happened with the Aldebarán…’
‘For fuck’s sake, what’s the matter? All you have to do is hit the target with the bottles and then get down on the ground.’
‘I don’t know…’
They sat a while in silence, undecided.
‘I’m only saying it won’t be easy,’ Rubia said, still grumbling on, his stubbornness apparent.
But as the man said nothing more, just lit himself a cigarette and waited with an air of scorn, Boga set to row towards the other bank.
They hid the dinghy in a ditch, just forward of the cable, and took out all the bottles. The dog leapt from the boat before they’d touched the other shore, and Rubia cursed the creature from the bottom of his soul.
‘That dog is going to mess things up for all of us!’ he said, through his teeth.
He turned and gave the little fellow a clout, as if he were the dog.
‘Don’t start with the dog!’ the man was shouting from the other bank.
It was now completely dark and they stumbled round a little, and had a bit of trouble trying to come upon the tree to which the cable had been fixed.
The Caporale turned up late, and long after they’d given up all hope it would arrive. They heard its engine beating with a curious kind of clarity, punching through the silence of the night.
They were feeling very sleepy after all those hours curled up there in the shadows, without speaking. At first it was mosquitoes that had come out to torment them. He could put up with mosquitoes, but they got to him tonight. He listened to Rubia griping in the darkness, slapping at his body hard. Some say if you’re nervous then you’ll feel them all the more. He didn’t think he was nervous. But this is what they say.
The moon had come up early and was early going down. He saw the figure of the man there, standing on the other bank, and lit up in the brightness like a statue. Everything had lost its relief, and appeared clear and flat. A few birds shuffled in the trees, as if dawn were arriving now. He heard the thrush’s song as it rippled in the night, there, just behind him, somewhere in the trees that looked as if they were moving slowly away. The river was a shining ribbon always on its course. After watching it for a while he couldn’t say where it ran anymore. There was a moment when it seemed as if it floated right over him, a few metres overhead. With this light, so white and even, this restless, sighing world had become completely fabulous.