Read Online The Clouds by Juan José Saer - Free Book Online

elliptical and sphinxlike way that the caretaker had to do business with the chief and was therefore defending him. The night before, when the caretaker had caused that silence and we all remained a little awkward in the sad and paltry lantern light, the audience’s disagreement with what we had just heard became apparent when one of those present began to speak, a traveler wrapped in a gray poncho whose eyes,perhaps reflecting the coals, blazed beneath the brim of a black hat worn midway down his brow. Almost motionless by the fire, as if his grossly thick body, layered in garments to protect him from the cold, was a denser region of shadow the lanterns could not dissipate, only his mouth and the bushy black moustache covering his upper lip, flanking the corners, curved and twitched, and while not explicitly contradicting the caretaker, perhaps out of courtesy—after all, even if in exchange for money, the caretaker had shown him hospitality—or maybe out of mere shyness, as if referring to another person and not the same Indian the caretaker had just described, he began telling story after story of the chief Josesito which, if they did follow the general fashion of all the caretaker had said of his temperament, they belied, in contrast, his supposedly peaceful behavior. It is true there are certain ranches, certain caravans, and certain outposts that the chief’s band did not attack, said the man, though that offered no proof of goodwill or compassion, but was rather a purely tactical calculation tied to his movements of attack and to his illusory plans meant to throw off the authorities, and to his need for supplies. If he did not burn certain ranches and certain outposts, it was because they stocked him up small-scale on his raids, and at the same time he could use them to make appearances and, in this way, lend himself a peaceful image. But three or four lucky ones, who had miraculously escaped and were the only survivors of his countless and vile bloodbaths, had seen him lead the attacks, recognizing him just by the violin case strapped to his back. One of the survivors was a musician—a circumstance that happened to save his life, but that cost him eight months in captivity—who escaped by sheer chance and told the authorities that, after a massacre, Josesito would walk among the smoking ruins and still-warm, mutilated bodies, playing the violin. According to the musician, said the man, Josesito played very well and had a most expansive repertoire, which he had learned frompriests on the reservation, and that, along with the violin, he had memorized a good number of musical scores. According to the man, the musician’s tale confirmed what the caretaker had said, namely that he was a sensitive, sullen, tormented Indian. He was rarely heard to laugh, and even with his warriors, who idolized him nonetheless and would have set off into death for him without hesitation, he was mistrustful and distant. According to the man, the chief was passing strange, and the musician had told him that one night, drunk, Josesito had begun threatening him and talking disdainfully of Christian music, making as if to throw the scores into the fire and smash the violin to pieces. The man said that, according to the musician, it looked as though what infuriated the Indian was not that the Christians’ music was as bad as he claimed, or that it enjoyed an undeserved reputation, but rather that it was good and that he, Josesito, enjoyed it so, which humiliated him like a vice or weakness.
    Shortly thereafter, we laid down to sleep as close as possible to the brazier in makeshift beds on the well-swept floor of the mess hall, where the intense, dry cold set in and, as I found in the morning, froze the ground a glossy blue. Before I lay down, I stepped out into the crisp night air to rid myself of the effects of the liquor that, out of politeness, I had been unable to reject. The moon was round and bright, whiting