“The truth is, I didn’t notice.”
They sat in silence for a while. They gazed idly at people swimming by them in the river. Birds were singing in the trees. In front of them, the sun dipped toward the horizon.
“Tell me frankly, Señor Gauna, is something bothering you?”
“Lots of things.”
“Such as what?”
“For example, the fact that the Indians are such great liars.”
This interested Clarke. Not because he needed confirmation that they were caught up in a web of lies, but because it might be useful for him to know what reasons his tracker had for saying so.
“Take that story of the ‘hare’ which ‘took off,’” Gauna said, a sarcastic emphasis in his voice. “Did you believe that?”
“There wasn’t much to believe, that’s for sure.”
“But it’s as if they were making fun of us!”
Hearing this remark, the Englishman’s curiosity took on a defensive edge. There was no doubt Gauna was treating him as stupid, because it was to him that almost all the comments had been addressed. He asked Gauna for an explanation. Gauna had one ready, and Clarke could not deny it was both ingenious and surprising.
“They say: the hare ‘took off.’ In Mapuche, that verb can also mean ‘was stolen,’ ‘was made to vanish.’ We have no reason to know of these double meanings, so we understand it in its first sense, and they go on with the joke at our expense; even when you ask them if what happened is real or an interpretation, they can permit themselves to lie with the truth, as they always do. And between you and me, I reckon that ‘hare’ is the name they give to some valuable object. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed their habit of giving very valuable objects names. OK, so there’s a robbery. When we reach the spot where they’ve caught the thief, or an accomplice, who knows, they put on this horse ballet for us, stare up at the sky, play the fool, like that idiot Mallén. Meanwhile under our very noses, they are dealing with the culprit. . ”
“You mean that poor man who fell from his horse? But that was an accident!”
“Yes, an ‘accident’. . And on top of it all, that hypocrite Reymacurá starts to give you a metaphysics lesson! But he couldn’t help letting a few of the most obvious sarcasms escape, like that story about the father who lost his son. Can you tell me what on earth a tale like that had to do with anything?”
“I took it as another example, and a very appropriate one. He was saying that a stolen child reappears as an adult somewhere else, and so establishes a continuity between different places and times.”
Gauna did not even bother to contradict him. Clarke had in fact taken this example (though he did not say this to Gauna) as a delicate touch by their Indian friend, because Clarke himself had been a foundling adopted and raised by a well-to-do middle-class family in Kent. It was hardly surprising that the Indians knew this, thanks to Rosas’s secret police, who were bound to have discovered it.
“And another thing,” Gauna went on. “An hour later, Cafulcurá’s wife sets out on a journey. Some coincidence, don’t you think?”
“But that fellow has thirty wives or more! There must always be one setting off on a journey somewhere.”
“But precisely that one, Juana Pitiley, the only one who is rich and powerful?”
He had really gone too far with his suspicions. The Englishman thought it better to change tack, and offered a kind of abstract summing up of their discussion.
“Words in Mapuche seem to have pretty unstable meanings.”
“No more so than in other languages.”
“I can assure you that’s not true of English.”
“I don’t know English, but if I look at Spanish, it’s just as ambiguous. For example, you can give your own name to anything you like: that tree, for instance — look at those low branches, don’t they look like a chair? If I came to have my siesta here every day, I’d end up calling that tree ‘chair.’. .”
“Good God!”
Gauna closed his mouth. After a while, he opened it again:
“And anyway, you can’t deny there’s a contradiction in the very fact of their speeches. We all know that savages show ‘an invincible repugnance toward speaking, except when it is absolutely necessary.’ Yet you yourself said a while ago that your head was spinning from all the chitchat you had to put up with. So that these people’s game consists in finding ‘absolute necessity’ where we see nothing but smoke rings.”
“And that seems suspicious to you too?”
“Yes, sir! Very suspicious!”
“Tell me something, Gauna, you don’t talk like a gaucho. Did you go to school as a boy?”
At that, Gauna lapsed back into being a gaucho again, mute and introspective. He gazed down at the tracks the busy ants were making on the ground. Tearing off a blade of grass, he chewed on it, then finally seemed to make up his mind:
“Of course I went to school. I. .”
That was as far as he got, because the reappearance of Carlos Alzaga Prior made him fall more silent than ever. The boy came to tell them he was going back to the tents with his new-found friends.
“But who are they?” Clarke wanted to know.
Carlos offered to show him, beaming like an idiot all the while. He led Clarke up a nearby bank and pointed out a group of young men and women. Most of the women had bulging stomachs in various stages of pregnancy.
“Come on, I’ll introduce you!”
“No, thanks.”
A lot of people were diving into the water.
“Did you have a swim?” Carlos asked him.
“The truth is, I’d love a dip.”
Carlos encouraged him to have one. The sun was still high enough for him to dry off afterward. They agreed to meet at dinner time. Clarke undressed and dived into the water, which turned out to be freezing. He was quite a good swimmer, and the exercise relaxed him; what with being on horseback and having to squat for all the conversations, he was very stiff. By the time he got out, Gauna had gone. He threw himself down on the grass and dozed. The sky had turned pink, the birdsong became more evocative, haunting. He saw some huge wild cattle lumber down for their evening drink. Through the leaves of the trees, in his drowsy state, he watched as the sky became a dark blue, and the tree trunks slowly turned black.
When he returned to the beach, there were only a few Indians left. They all greeted him with elaborate courtesy. His horse stood waiting. He set off at a walk in the dusk.
At night, everything was fire. In the universal classification, the Mapuches were a fire culture. They lit them on any excuse, and enjoyed them immensely. At every step, near and far, fires, torches, bonfires shone out, creating marvelous reflections on the bodies of the Indians, whose nightly pleasure was to daub themselves in grease from head to foot. Neither Cafulcurá, nor Alvarito, nor any of the main chieftains appeared, busy as they seemed to be with their political conversations. Gauna and Clarke ate grilled meat with some tight-lipped ministers: Carlos Alzaga Prior came by for a minute to say he would be spending the night with friends. Gauna, who had not managed to take a siesta, retired early. Clarke sat for a while outside the tent, smoking a pipe, watching the fires and the Indians passing by. He was about to go and lie down when Mallén appeared.
“How are you, Mister Clarke, have you eaten?”
“Scrumptiously.”
“I’m glad. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to look after you properly, but something urgent cropped up. . you know how it is.”
“Oh, yes? Something urgent? A war? I suppose you couldn’t tell me anyway?”
“No, no. Nothing that serious, trifles really, the same as usual.”
“But you yourself told me yesterday that it wasn’t usual for you to be so busy.”
“That’s true, but you will admit that sometimes, the usual can pile up.”