The Insufferable Gaucho Read Online Free PDF Page B

photographs, he learned that the
owners of the ranch had gone off to the city a long time ago (she couldn’t say
which city), and the laborers, having ceased to receive their monthly
pay-packet, had gradually drifted away too. The woman also told them about a
river and flooding, although Pereda had no idea where the river could be, and no
one in Capitán Jourdan had mentioned any kind of flooding. Predictably, they ate
rabbit stew, which their hostess had prepared with an expert hand. As they were
getting ready to go, Pereda pointed out the way to Alamo Negro, his ranch, in
case they ever got tired of living out there. I don’t pay much, but at least
there’s company, he said seriously, as if explaining that death came after life.
Then he gathered the children around him and proceeded to dispense advice. When
he had finished speaking, he saw that the psychiatrist and the skirted woman had
fallen asleep on their chairs. Day was about to break when they left. The light
of a full moon shimmered on the plain, and from time to time they saw a rabbit
jump, but Pereda paid no attention, and after a long spell of silence he softly
began to sing a song in French that his late wife had liked.
    The song was about a pier and mist, and faithless lovers (as all
lovers are in the end, he thought indulgently), and places that remain
steadfastly faithful.
    Sometimes, as he walked or rode José Bianco around the dubious
boundaries of his ranch, Pereda thought that nothing would ever be the same
unless the cattle returned. Cows, he shouted, where are you?
    In winter, the skirted woman turned up at Alamo Negro with the
children in tow, and things changed. She was known to some people in Capitán
Jourdan and they were pleased to see her again. The woman didn’t talk much but
there could be no doubt that she worked harder than the six gauchos Pereda had
on the payroll at the time, loosely speaking, since he often went for months
without paying them. In any case, some of the gauchos had what could be called
an idiosyncratic conception of time. They could adapt to a forty-day month
without any major headaches. Or to a four-hundred-and-forty day year. None of
them, in fact, Pereda included, wanted to think about time. By the fireside,
some of the gauchos talked about electroshock therapy, while others spoke like
professional sports commentators, except that they were commenting on a match
played long ago, when they were twenty or thirty and belonged to some gang of
hooligans. Sons of bitches, thought Pereda tenderly, with a manly sort of
tenderness, of course.
    One night, sick of hearing the old guys rambling on about psychiatric
hospitals and slums where parents made their children go without milk so they
could travel to support their soccer team in some historic match, he asked them
about their political opinions. At first the gauchos were reluctant to talk
about politics, but when he finally got them to open up, it turned out that, in
one way or another, they were all nostalgic for General Perón.
    This is where we part company, said Pereda, and pulled out his knife.
For a few seconds he thought that the gauchos would do the same and his destiny
would be sealed that night, but the old guys recoiled in fear and asked what he
was doing, for God’s sake. What had they done? What had got into him? The
flickering fire threw tiger-like stripes of light across their faces, but,
gripping his knife and trembling, Pereda felt that the shame of the nation or
the continent had turned them into tame cats. That’s why the cattle have been
replaced by rabbits, he thought as he turned and walked back to his room.
    I’d slaughter the lot of you if you weren’t so pathetic, he
shouted.
    The next morning he was worried that the gauchos might have gone back
to Capitán Jourdan, but they were all still there, working in the yard or
drinking mate by the fire, as if nothing had happened. A few days later the
skirted woman arrived from the ranch out west and Alamo