“True enough.”
“By the way, tomorrow there is a gap in the protocol, and Cafulcurá asked me to convey his invitation to you. For my part, I should also like to offer you a rather fuller apology for our lack of courtesy.”
“I’m all ears.”
Mallén had not sat down. The two men were standing talking next to the entrance to the tent, and the shaman darted a glance inside. He seemed unwilling to speak there, as if afraid Gauna might be listening. This was a groundless fear, as they could both clearly hear the gaucho’s snores.
“Let’s walk a little, if you’re not tired.”
They set off in the direction of the nearest bonfire.
“I trust your tent is comfortable.”
“Fine, thank you. Are you expecting Namuncurá soon?”
“Not at all. He could be away weeks if he feels like it.”
Clarke had been surprised at being lodged in the tent of the chieftain’s son and heir, who was away on a trip. Especially since all the man’s wives were still in occupation.
When they had walked some distance, Mallén began to stammer, in the typically ceremonious manner which meant he was about to say something he had previously thought over.
“In the first place, I’d like to say how sorry I am that your visit has coincided with these. . shall we say, special circumstances. All this surveillance, all these security measures. . they must have been a burden to you.”
Although Clarke had been unaware of anything of the sort, he thought it wiser to keep quiet.
“But how were you to know that Cafulcurá is to celebrate his seventieth birthday soon, and that he is cautious enough to take some old-standing prophecies seriously? Cautious isn’t the word!. . Well, with him, one never knows. I also wanted to talk to you about that. I don’t think I’d be wrong in saying that certain of our chieftain’s characteristics must have seemed to you, at the very least, surprising. I don’t intend to make excuses for him, but some of them do have their explanation. I’ve known him for countless years now, and I think I understand him better than anyone. So I beg you to take what I am going to say as a corrective to your impressions, but one that in no way implies any disrespect for your perspicacity. Bear in mind that this incoherent old man, high on grass, who gave you all the rigmarole about the continuum, has for the past fifty years borne on his shoulders all the responsibility of governing an empire made up of a million souls scattered throughout the south of the continent, and has done, and will continue to do, a pretty good job. From his youth onward, Cafulcurá has worshipped simplicity and spontaneity. But one can’t help thinking, and as soon as one does, all simplicity goes to the devil. And also, to be truly spontaneous, one would have to say ‘spontaniety,’ wouldn’t one?”
The joke was different in Huilliche of course, which was the language they were speaking in. But it survives the translation.
“Which explains,” Mallén went on, “his consumption of hallucinogenic grasses, although I must admit it’s gone a bit far of late. He uses them to create images, which interact with words to create hieroglyphs, and consequently new meanings. Given the prismatic nature of our language, there is no better way of bringing out meaning, in other words, of governing. And also, given that his own personal standing is based on his position as a man-myth, how could he think in any other fashion? He’s looking for speed, speed at any cost, and so he turns to the imaginary, which is pure speed, oscillating acceleration, as against the fixed rhythm of language.”
By now, they had reached the opposite crescent of tents, and so the shaman invited him to turn back. In the distance, the sound of feasting and quarreling could be heard; fires gleamed all round in the darkness.
“There’s no moon tonight,” Mallén said.
As they came up to Namuncurá’s tent once more, Mallén finally explained what the chieftain’s invitation consisted of.
“Tomorrow at noon there’ll be a hare hunt nearby in your honor, if you’re free. Good: I can assure you that this time you won’t be disappointed as you were today, although I can’t bring myself to believe that any hare will fly. We don’t want you to get a bad impression of us. Up to now, we’ve given you too many words and not enough action, haven’t we? But without words, there can be no experience. Although without experience, there can be no words — or anything else, for that matter.”
3: The Hunt
During the hunt the next day, Clarke did not see a single hare, and could have sworn that no one else did either. He was not sure, but had nobody to ask, or even to exchange opinions with; Gauna, who had begun talking to some idle old men in the hope of drawing them out, declared he had no intention of going; and the young watercolorist did not even bother to put in an appearance all morning. Around midday, a band of tall, haughty Indians came to tell Clarke they were waiting for him. This was a select group of about a hundred adults, all of them extremely well mounted. The athletic figure of Cafulcurá towered stony-faced above another group, who must have been his personal bodyguard. He did not greet Clarke even from a distance. In fact nobody greeted him, but then he did not know anyone in the party. They set off toward the east, at a brisk trot, but without too much haste. It was a sunny day like the previous one; as they rode, a searching breeze refreshed their bodies. Clarke was riding along with the men who had come to fetch him; like all the other Indians, they were smeared with a foul-smelling grease. Repetido was the only horse with a saddle. The Indians’ mounts, all of them light-colored ponies with extravagant markings, did not seem to be any better or swifter than his. They gradually increased their speed. As he had no idea where they were going, Clarke could not calculate how long it might take them to get there. The land was flat as a billiard table; the grass muffled the sound of their hooves. Lapwings traced wide circles of alarm in the sky. Clarke was riding in the midst of the group, so that the explosive flight of any partridges would not cause him such a shock. He had learned this precaution from Gauna, who gave a start and lifted his hand to his heart whenever a bird’s whirring escape caught him off guard. But the gaucho thought too much, unlike Clarke, who was the most outgoing of men. Apart from the warriors around Cafulcurá, who carried long lances, the rest of the Indians were unarmed, out for pleasure.
They must have gone three or four leagues, drinking in the cool air, rising and falling in extended cadences on the backs of their horses, when they suddenly came to a halt in a spot that was the same as all the others — because they were all the same — but was broader, more spacious still (the planet must have been squashed flat here, there was no other explanation). A few Indians who were perhaps especially skilful hunters began to walk round in circles staring closely at the ground, and then exchanged some words with Cafulcurá. In spite of the distance, Clarke could make out that the spokesman had put his eyes into a squint. He guessed he must be saying that this was a good place to find hares. The chieftain appeared to think for an instant, then shouted out in a loud voice that contrasted with his hesitant stammerings in private: “Ñi Clarke!” Silence spread still further, like a shock wave. The Indians around Clarke looked the other way in such a childish fashion that it was comic. He supposed the cry must mean something like “In honor of Clarke!” Several riders sped off in a line, which others joined at the end. Their leader took only a couple of minutes to reach the horizon. The bulk of the hunters fanned out, also at top speed, in what appeared to be a random dispersal. Cafulcurá was among them, and Clarke urged Repetido on in a direction more or less parallel to that of the chieftain. How they galloped! There was something hare-like about these lean, tireless horses which knew nothing but how to run. It took only a short time for them to disperse all over the vast prairie. When they reached a certain point, which must have been measured more by time than by place, the Indians turned round and sped back the way they had come. Obediently, Clarke copied them, although no one had explained the procedure to him. The mass of riders made up a moving grid; this probably created, from the point of view of the cornered hares, a closing circle which terrified them. Clarke even imagined he could make out the darting movements of the hares in between the horses’ hooves. But he would never have been able to point to any one of them. They were the foreshadowings of his perception, which never came to fruition. He racked his brains to try to work out what the key to the maneuver was. Perhaps each hunter simply passed the quarry onto the person who came after him in a lateral line, and so on the whole time. If that was the case, it was like a game of checkers that was pure speed, with no result. Although the result might be to exhaust the hares. Then in the end, they would be able to catch them by the ears by simply stretching out their hands, without even bothering to dismount. That would be typical of the Indians. The faint line of the horizon, grown fainter than ever, always kept half of the participants hidden from view, while at the same time, each one was at the center of his own circle. Movement was everything; the earth slipped by in dizzying strips; the sun was first on one side, then the other. Space itself changed position with each sweep: it seemed as though they were watching it pass by upside down. Off they went! Back they came! But to Clarke they were neither coming nor going; his point of view not only accompanied them, but was transformed as he joined in.