The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories Page 3

  The dogs accompanied him but stopped in the shade of the first carob tree; it was too hot. From there, their feet firmly planted, alert, with worried brow, they watched him walk away from them. Finally, afraid of being left conquered and oppressed by the heat, they trotted after him.

  Mister Jones obtained his bolt and returned. To take the shortest route, he avoided the dusty curve of the road and walked in a straight path toward his field. He reached the stream bed and plunged into the hayfield, the diluvial hayfield of the Saladito, which had grown, dried out, and grown up again for as long as there has been hay in the world, without ever knowing fire. The chest-high, arched plants were matted and tangled. The task of crossing through them, difficult enough on a cool day, was extremely difficult at that hour. Pushing his way through the resistant grass, dusty from mud left by floods, Mister Jones was choked by fatigue and billows of bitter nitrate dust.

  He emerged, finally, and paused at the edge of the field, but it was impossible, exhausted as he was, to stand still beneath that heat. He continued walking. To the burning heat that had increased without ceasing for three days was now added the suffocation of disordered time. The sky was burning white; not a breath of air stirred. Mister Jones gasped for air, the pain in his heart so strong it hurt to breathe.

  Mister Jones realized he had exceeded his limits. For some time he had heard the pounding of his heart in his ears. He felt dizzy, as if some pressure inside his head were pushing his skull outward. When he looked at the grass, he grew dizzy. He hurried forward to reach his house and get out of the sun . . . and then suddenly came to and found himself in a completely different place; completely unaware, he had walked a quarter-mile. He looked around and again felt a new wave of vertigo.

  Meanwhile the dogs were following behind him, their tongues hanging from the sides of their mouths. At times, suffocated, they would stop in the shade of some esparto grass to sit down, panting faster than ever, but would then return to the torment of the sun. Now, almost within reach of the house, they trotted as fast as they could.

  It was at that moment that Old, who was the farthest ahead, saw Mister Jones through the wire fence, dressed in white, walking toward them. The pup, with a sudden recollection, faced his patrón and howled, “Death! Death!”

  The others had seen it, too, and burst into barking, their hair standing on end. They saw the figure cross over the wire fence and for an instant thought they had been mistaken, but when it came within a hundred meters of them, it stopped, looked at the group with celestial eyes, and walked straight ahead.

  “I hope the patrón is on guard!” Prince exclaimed.

  “He’s going to run right into it!” they all howled.

  And, in fact, the figure, after a brief hesitation, advanced, not directly toward them as before, but in an oblique and apparently erroneous line that would lead it precisely to an encounter with Mister Jones. Then the dogs understood that it was all over; their patrón continued to walk straight ahead like an automaton, oblivious to everything. Now the figure was upon him. The dogs lowered their tails and scurried sideways, still howling. A second passed and the encounter was effected. Mister Jones stopped dead, spun in a circle, and fell to the ground.

  The peons, who had seen him fall, hurriedly carried him to the house, but all the water in the world was useless; he died without regaining consciousness. Mister Moore, a stepbrother, came from Buenos Aires, spent an hour in the field, and in four days had liquidated everything and returned immediately to the south. The Indians divided the dogs, who from that time on were thin and mangy and every night, with hungry stealth, went to steal ears of corn in fields not their own.

  The Pursued

  One night when I was at Lugones’s home, the rain so increased in intensity that we rose to look at it from the windows. The wild pampa wind whistled through the wires and whipped the rain in convulsive gusts that distorted the reddish light from the street lamps. This afternoon, after six days of rain, the heavens had cleared to the south, leaving a limpid cold blue sky. And then, behold, the rain returned to promise us another week of bad weather.

  Lugones had a stove, which was extremely comforting to my winter debility. We sat down once again and continued our pleasant chat concerning the insane. Several days before, Lugones had visited an insane asylum, and the bizarre behavior of the inmates, added to behavior I myself had once observed, afforded more than enough material for a comfortable vis-à-vis between two sane men.

  Given the circumstance of the weather, then, we were rather surprised when the bell at the street door rang. Moments later Lucas Díaz Vélez entered.

  This individual has had quite an ominous influence over a period of my life, and that was the night I met him. As is customary, Lugones introduced us by our last names only, so that for some time I didn’t know his given name.

  Díaz was much slimmer then than he is now. His black clothes—the color of dark maté tea—his sharp face, and his large black eyes gave him a none too common appearance. The eyes, of surprising steadiness and extreme brilliance, especially demanded one’s attention. In those days he parted his straight hair in the middle, and, perfectly smoothed down, it looked like a shining helmet.

  Vélez spoke very little at first. He crossed his legs, responding only when strictly necessary. At a moment when I had turned toward Lugones, I happened to see that Vélez was observing me. Doubtless in another I would have found this examination following an introduction very natural, but his unwavering attention shocked me.

  Soon our conversation came to a standstill. Our situation was not very pleasant, especially for Vélez, since he must have assumed that we were not practicing this terrible muteness before he arrived. He himself broke the silence. He spoke to Lugones of some honey cakes a friend had sent him from Salta, a sample of which he should have brought that night. They seemed to be of a particularly pleasing variety, and, as Lugones showed sufficient interest in sampling them, Díaz Vélez promised to send him the means to do so.

  Once the ice was broken, after about ten minutes we returned to our subject of madmen. Although seeming not to lose a single word of what he heard, Díaz held himself apart from the lively subject; perhaps it was not his predilection. As a result, when Lugones left the room for a moment, I was astonished by his unexpected interest. In one minute he told me a number of anecdotes—his expression animated and his mouth precise with conviction. He certainly had much more love for these things than I had supposed, and his last story, related with great vivacity, made me see that he understood the mad with a subtlety not common in this world.

  The story was about a boy from the provinces who, after emerging from the debilitating weakness of typhoid, found the streets peopled with enemies. He underwent two months of persecution, committing, as a result, all kinds of foolish acts. As he was a boy of certain intelligence, he commented on his own case so cleverly that it was impossible to know what to think. It sounded exactly like a farce, and this was the general impression of those who heard him discuss his own case so roguishly—always with the vanity characteristic of the mad.

  In this fashion he spent three months displaying his psychological astuteness, until one day his mind was cleansed in the clear water of sanity and his ideas became more temperate.

  “He is well now,” Vélez concluded, “but several rather symptomatic acts have remained with him. A week ago, for example, I ran into him in a pharmacy; he was leaning against the counter, waiting for what I don’t know. We started chatting. Suddenly an individual came in without our seeing him, and, as there was no clerk, he rapped with his fingers on the counter. My friend abruptly turned on the intruder with truly animal quickness, staring into his eyes. Anyone would have similarly turned, but not with that rapidity of a man who is always on his guard. Although he was no longer pursued, he must have retained, unawares, an underlying fear that exploded at the least surprise. After staring for a moment, not moving a muscle, he blinked and averted his disinterested eyes. It was as though he
had guarded a dark memory of something terrible that happened to him in another time, something he never wanted to catch him unprepared again. Imagine, then, the effect on him of someone’s grabbing his arm on the street. I think it would never leave him.”

  “Undoubtedly the symptom is typical,” I confirmed. “And did the psychological talk come to an end also?”

  A strange thing: Díaz became very serious and gave me a cold, hostile look.

  “May I know why you ask me that?”

  “Because we were speaking precisely of that!” I replied, surprised. But obviously the man had seen how ridiculous he had been, because immediately he apologized profusely.

  “Forgive me. I don’t know what happened to me. I’ve felt this way at times . . . unexpectedly lost my head. Crazy things,” he added, laughing and playing with a ruler.

  “Completely crazy,” I joked.

  “And so crazy! It’s only by chance I have an ounce of sense left. And now I remember, although I asked your pardon—and I ask it again—that I haven’t answered your question. My friend does not talk about psychology any more. And now that he is eminently sane, he does not feel perverse in denouncing his own madness as he did before, forcing that terrible two-edged sword one calls reason, you see? It’s very clear.”

  “Not very,” I allowed myself to doubt.

  “Possibly,” he laughed, conclusively. “Another really crazy thing.” He winked at me and moved away from the table, smiling and shaking his head like someone who is withholding many things he could tell.

  Lugones returned, and we dropped the subject—already exhausted. During the remainder of the visit Díaz spoke very little, although it was clear that his own lack of sociability was making him very nervous. Finally, he left. Perhaps he tried to overcome any bad impression he may have made by his extremely friendly farewell, offering his name and the hospitality of his house along with the prolonged clasp of affectionate hands. Lugones went down with him, since the now-dark stairway was so precipitous that no one was ever tempted to try it alone.

  “What the devil kind of person is he?” I asked when Lugones returned. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “A terrible individual. I don’t know how he came to speak ten words to you tonight. He often sits a whole hour without speaking a word, and you can imagine how pleased I am when he’s like that. On the other hand, he comes very seldom. And he’s very intelligent in his good moments. You must have noticed that, since I heard you talking.”

  “Yes, he was telling me about a strange case.”

  “What case?”

  “About a friend who is pursued. He knows as much about madness as the devil himself.”

  “I guess so, since he himself is pursued.”

  Scarcely had I heard what he said than a flash of explanatory logic illuminated the darkness I had felt in the other. Undoubtedly . . . ! I remembered above all his irritable air when I asked him if he didn’t discuss psychology any more. . . . The good madman had thought I had guessed his secret and was insinuating myself into his consciousness. . . .

  “Of course!” I laughed. “Now I understand! But your Díaz Vélez is fiendishly subtle!” And I told him about the snare he had thrown out to me to amuse himself at my expense: the fiction of a pursued friend, and his comments. But I had scarcely begun when Lugones interrupted.

  “There is no friend; that actually happened. Except that his friend is he himself. He told you the complete truth; he had typhoid, was very ill, and is cured to this degree, and now you see that his very sanity is questionable. It’s also very possible that the business of the store counter is true, but that it happened to him. He’s an interesting individual, eh?”

  “And then some!” I responded, as I toyed with the ashtray.

  It was late when I left. The weather had finally settled, and, although one could not see the sky above, he sensed the ceiling had lifted. It was no longer raining. A strong, dry wind rippled the water on the sidewalks and forced one to lean into it at street corners. I reached Santa Fe Street and waited a while for the streetcar, shaking the water from my feet. Bored, I decided to walk; I quickened my pace, dug my hands into my pockets, and then thought in some detail about Díaz Vélez.

  The thing I remembered best about him was the look with which he had first observed me. It couldn’t be called intelligent, reserving intelligence to be included among those qualities—habitual in persons of certain stature—to be exchanged to a greater or lesser degree among persons of similar culture. In such looks there is always an interchange of souls: one delves into the depths of the person he has just met and, at the same time, yields part of his own soul to the stranger.

  Díaz didn’t look at me that way; he only looked at me. He wasn’t thinking what I was or what I might be, nor was there in his look the least spark of psychological curiosity. He was simply observing me, as one would unblinkingly observe the equivocal attitude of some feline.

  After what Lugones had told me, I was no longer astonished by the objectivity of the madman’s stare. After his examination, satisfied surely, he had made fun of me, shaking the scarecrow of his own madness in my face. But his desire to denounce himself, without revealing himself, had less the object of making fun of me than of entertaining himself. I was simply a pretext for his argument and, above all, a point of confrontation; the more I admired the devilish perversity of the madman he was describing to me, the more he must have been furtively rubbing his hands. The only thing that kept him from being completely happy was that I didn’t say, “But isn’t your friend afraid they’ll find him out when he denounces himself that way?” It hadn’t occurred to me, because the friend didn’t interest me especially. But now that I knew who the pursued one was, I promised myself to provide him with the wild happiness he desired. This is what I was thinking as I walked along.

  Nevertheless, two weeks passed without my seeing him. I knew through Lugones that he had been at Lugones’s house to bring him the confections—a good gift for him.

  “He also brought some for you. Since he didn’t know where you live—I don’t think you gave him your address—he left them at my house. You must come by and get them.”

  “Some day. Is he still at the same address?”

  “Díaz Vélez?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, I suppose so; he didn’t say a word about leaving.”

  The next rainy night I went to Lugones’s house, sure of finding Díaz Vélez. Even though I realized, better than anyone, that the logic of thinking I would meet him precisely on a rainy night was worthy only of a dog or a madman, the probability of absurd coincidence always rules in such cases where reason no longer operates.

  Lugones laughed at my insistence on seeing Díaz Vélez.

  “Be careful! The pursued always begin by adoring their future victims. He remembered you very well.”

  “That doesn’t matter. When I see him, it’s going to be my turn to amuse myself.”

  I left very late that night.

  But I didn’t find Díaz Vélez. Not until one noon when, just as I was starting to cross the street, I saw him on Artes Street. He was walking north, looking into all the shopwindows, not missing a one, like a person preoccupied. When I caught a glimpse of him, I had one foot off the sidewalk. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t, and I stepped into the street, almost stumbling. I turned around and looked at the curb, although I was quite sure there was nothing there. One of the plaza carriages driven by a Negro in a shiny jacket passed so close to me that the hub of the rear wheel left grease on my trousers. I stood still, staring at the horse’s hooves, until an automobile forced me to jump out of the way.

  All this lasted about ten seconds, as Díaz continued moving away, and I was forced to hurry. When I felt sure of overtaking him, all my hesitation left and was replaced by a great feeling of self-satisfaction. I felt myself in perfect equilibrium. All my nerves were tingling and resilient. I opened and closed my hands, flexing my fingers, happy. Four or five times a minute I put
my hand to my watch, forgetting that it was broken.

  Díaz Vélez continued walking, and soon I was two steps behind him. One step more and I could touch him. But seeing him this way, not even remotely aware of my presence in spite of his delirium about persecution and psychology, I adjusted my step exactly to his. Pursued! Very well . . . ! I noted in detail his head, his elbows, his clenched hands—held a little away from his body—the transverse wrinkles of his trousers at the back of the knee, the heels of his shoes, appearing and disappearing. I had the dizzying sensation that once before, millions of years before, I had done this: met Díaz Vélez in the street, followed him, caught up with him, and, having done so, continued to follow behind him—behind him. I glowed with the satisfaction of a dozen lifetimes. Why touch him? Suddenly it occurred to me that he might turn around, and instantly anguish clutched at my throat. I thought that with my larynx throttled like this I wouldn’t be able to cry out, and my only fear, my terrifyingly unique fear, was that I would not be able to cry out if he turned around, as if the goal of my existence were suddenly to throw myself upon him, to pry open his jaws, and to shout unrestrainedly into his open mouth—counting every molar as I yelled.