'With your permission,' said Oswaldo, seating himself at my table. He carried a comic book. It was a Spanish one, about an inch thick, and its title was D 'A rtagnan - the name of the goonish swashbuckler in the cover story. It seemed fairly unambitious reading, even for a meat salesman.
I ignored him and looked out of the window. We left Tucuman, the city, then the province, and entered the adjacent province of Santiago de Estero. In the misty dusk, the cane fields and orange groves were richly green, like Ireland at twilight. There were fires in some of the farmyards, and enough light for me to make out the cane-cutters' brick sheds in a terrace row, and far-off the roofs and pillars of the owner's mansion, and the beautiful horses standing by the fence. Then night fell on the cane fields and the only sign of life was the yellow headlamps of cars wobbling down the country roads.
'This is where it happened,' said Oswaldo. He had put down his comicbook. 'Thecrash.'
He braced himself against the table, as if he expected to be thrown off his chair. But the train continued to rock through Argentina and a man was singing in the kitchen.
Dinner was served at ten o'clock - four courses, including a fat steak, for two dollars. It was the sort of dining car where the waiters and stewards were dressed more formally than the people eating. All the tables were full, a well-fed noisy crowd of mock-Europeans. Two men had joined Oswaldo and me, and after a decent pause and some wine, one of them began talking about his reason for going to Buenos Aires: his father had just had a heart attack.
He spoke in slushy Argentine Spanish, turning every double-L into a Russian zha sound. 'My father's eighty-five years old,' said the man, stuffing his mouth with bread. 'Never got sick a day in his life. He smokes all the time, practically eats cigarettes. He's very strong and healthy. I was surprised when they called me up and told me he'd had a heart attack. I said, "That man's never been sick a day in his life." '
'My father was the same,' said the second man. 'Very tough, a real old-timer. He didn't die of a heart attack. With him it was his liver.'
Oswaldo said, 'Well, my father-'
The first man was smoking and eating compulsively; smoke trickled out of his nostrils as he chewed bread. Every so often he'd call out, 'Boss!'
'Boss!' he yelled. 'Bring me an ashtray. I need an ashtray when I eat.'
He ate all the bread in the basket.
'Boss! More bread - I'm hungry. And, while you're at it, another beer-I'm thirsty.'
They had a lot of swagger, these men; they were full of talk and rather deficient in humour. They were not idle; in fact, they struck me as being hard-working. But, of all the people I met in South America, the Argentines were the least interested in the outside world or in any subject that did not directly concern Argentina. They shared this quality with white South Africans; they seemed to imply that they were stuck at the bottom of the world and surrounded by savages. They had a bluff bullying tone, even when they spoke to one another, and they were philistines to the core. This was my assessment on the North Star. It was not until after I arrived in Buenos Aires that I met sweeter-natured people, and even intellectuals, and had to revise my opinion.
For the next half-hour Oswaldo and the other two talked about football. Argentina had just beaten Peru, and they were confident about Argentina's chances in the World Cup in July.
'Do you speak Spanish?' It was the first man, whose father had had the heart attack. He held a segment of bread near his mouth.
'Yes,' I said. 'I think it's adequate.'
'You don't say very much. That's why I'm asking.'
'I'm not interested in football.'
He smirked at the others. 'I mean, you don't join the conversation.'
'What conversation?'
'This one,' he said, growing impatient.
'About football.'
'No, about everything. We talk - you don't. You just sit there.'
'So what?' I said.
'Maybe something is wrong.'
So that was it: suspicion, fear, the sense that my silence meant disapproval; the old South American insecurity.
I said, 'Nothing is wrong. I am very happy to be here. Argentina is a wonderful country.'
'He is happy,' said the man. He still held the segment of bread in his hand. He moved his wine glass closer and said, 'Want to know what they do in Spain? Watch. This is what they do. Ready? They dunk their piece of bread in like this.' He dunked his piece of bread in the wine. Then they eat it. Like this.' He ate the soggy bread and, still chewing, he said, 'See? They put bread into wine. In Spain.'
I said, 'If you think that's strange, listen to this.'
They smiled: I had joined the conversation.
'The Italians put fruit into wine,' I went on. They chop up pears, peaches, bananas, and put them into a wine glass. They stir it, eat the fruit, and then drink the wine. Imagine doing that to a glass of wine!'
This did not go down well. They stared at me.
Finally, Oswaldo said, 'We do that, too.'
The meal ended with coffee and creme caramel, and then the second man launched into a boring description of what bread was called in different parts of Argentina. 'Now this, in Tucuman, we call a bun. But if you go to Cordoba they'll call it a roll. Over in Salta they call it a cake. But loaf- that's what they call it in -'
He went on and on, and the others chipped in with their regional differences. I felt I could add nothing to this. I said good night and walked through the speeding train and went to bed.
A dream claimed me. I was with a lovely sly woman in an Edwardian house. The house shook, the floor dipped and bobbed like a raft, and cracks made their way up the walls. The woman pleaded with me to explain this shaking. I looked out of the shattered front window, and then walked into the yard. There was such a wobble in the yard I could barely stand up; but it had to be felt - it could not be seen. The woman was at the window, and all the bricks around her were split.
'You are over a magnetic field,' I said. There is a wire down there loaded with electricity.' I was balancing unsteadily as I spoke. This magnetism is causing the house to shake -'
I woke up. The train was shaking like the yard in my dream, and I no longer remembered the woman's name.
It was a sunny day, and moments later we stopped at San Lorenzo on the Parana River. Across the river was the province of Entre Rios, and beyond that Uruguay. The land was flat, the fences entwined with morning glories, and horses cropped grass in the open pastures.
Oswaldo was packing. Those fellows we were having dinner with last night,' he said. 'They got interesting after you left. You should not have gone to bed so soon.'
'1 didn't have anything to say.'
'You could have listened,' said Oswaldo. 'It was interesting. One of them is in the meat business. He knew me! Well, not personally, but he had heard of me.'
Oswaldo was very pleased with this. He finished packing. His comic book still lay on the seat.
'Want my book?'
I picked it up and glanced through it. D'Artagnan was a Spanish comic, luridly illustrated. Super Album, it said. Ten Complete Stories in Full Colour. I looked at the stories: 'Goodbye California,' 'We, The Legion,' 'Or-Grund, Viking Killer.' It was cowboys, detectives, cave men, soldiers, and ads for learning how to fix televisions in your spare time.
'I've got a book,' I said.
T'm offering it to you for nothing,' said Oswaldo.
'I don't read comics.'
'This one is beautiful.'
Comics are for kids and illiterates, I wanted to say, but one was not supposed to criticize these people.
Thank you,' I said. 'Do you ever read Argentine authors?'
This,' he said, tapping the comic book in my hand, 'is an Argentine book. It is from Buenos Aires.'
'I was thinking of the other kind of books. Without pictures.'
'Stories?'
'Yes. Borges, for example.'