Fiction, from 1967: “He understood that one destiny is no better than another but that every man should revere the destiny he bears within him.”
On the sixth of February, 1829, the irregular troops beating their way north to join the divisions under command of López, already prey to harassment by Lavalle, made a halt at a hacienda, whose name was unknown to them, three or four leagues from the Pergamino. Toward dawn, one of the men was victim of an obstinate nightmare; in the depths of a shed’s darkness, his confused cry awoke the woman who was sleeping with him.
In the last days of June, 1870, he received orders to arrest an outlaw who owed two deaths to justice. The outlaw was a deserter from the southern-frontier forces under Colonel Benito Machado. During a drunken spree, he had done in a mulatto in a brothel; in another such episode, he had killed a resident of the district of Rojas; the report on him added that he came from Laguna Colorada.
The altercation—a projection or error of alcohol—comes to an end with the same rapidity with which it began. Otálora drinks with the drovers and later accompanies them to a party, and still later to a big house in the Old City, the sun by now high in the sky. In the innermost patio, which is of earth, the men spread out their gear to sleep on. Otalora dimly compares this night with the previous one; now he walks on solid ground, among friends.
The bedroom is dilapidated and dark. There is a balcony facing west, a long table covered with whips, horsewhips, gun and cartridge belts, firearms, and knives, and there is a remote mirror with its glass dimmed. Bandeira lies face upward. He dreams and moans; the vehemence of a setting sun outlines him. The vast, white bed seems to diminish and obscure him. Otálora takes note of the gray hair, the fatigue, the flaccidity, the fissures of the years.
Here the story becomes complicated, more profound. Azevedo Bandeira is an expert in the art of progressive intimidation, in the satanic maneuver of gradually humiliating his interlocutor by combining verities and gibes. Otálora resolves to apply this ambiguous method to the hard task he has set himself. He resolves to supplant, slowly, Azevedo Bandeira. He gains, during days of common danger, the friendship of Suárez. He confides in him his plan; Suárez promises his help.
Beatriz Viterbo died in 1929. From that time on, I never let a thirtieth of April go by without a visit to her house. I used to arrive there around seven-fifteen and stay about twenty-five minutes. Every year, I came a little later and stayed a little longer. In 1933, a torrential rain worked to my advantage; they were forced to invite me to dine. I did not fail to avail myself of this advantageous precedent. In 1934, I appeared, just after eight, with a honey nutcake from Santa Fe.
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