La Grande by Juan José Saer Read Free Book Online Page A

us. We’re looking for the Escalante family.
    â€”You mean Doctor Escalante? she says.
    Nula hesitates.
    â€”Yes, that’s right, Gutiérrez says. He’s a lawyer.
    â€”He’s retired, the woman says. That’s them next door.
    The woman points to the next house over. There’s a flower bed out front, behind a fence; an expanse of neat lawn around the side courtyard, with an enormous orange tree at the center; and, at the back, a garden, judging by the cane and wire plant trellises, visible thanks to the light that shines through the windows on the far side of the ivy-covered house. Delicia! Delicia! the woman shouts. After a minute or so the door opens and a feminine silhouette, apparently very young, is cut from the rectangle of light.
    â€”What is it? she shouts.
    â€”Delicia, it’s me, Celia. There’s two men here looking for an attorney.
    The silhouette in the doorway hesitates a few seconds.
    â€”Who are you? she finally shouts.
    Gutiérrez steps up to the fence and shouts back, I’m a friend from abroad, coming by to say hello.
    Suddenly, and inexplicably, the silhouette in the doorway starts to laugh.
    â€”I know who you are, she says. Sergio’s at the club. Sorry not to come out but I’m washing my hair. Good to meet you. Celia, honey, can you show them where the club is?
    â€”Look, says the first woman. Go past the church and turn right. It’s three blocks, on the river side. The sign says El Amarillo .
    â€”Thank you, Nula and Gutiérrez say in unison, acting much more polite than if they were speaking to a man, somewhere more crowded, and in the middle of the day. They turn back the way they came, then right on the second corner, pass the church, and walk a block parallel to the square. After crossing the street again—Nula sees the same iridescent vapor haloed over the light at the intersection that covered the white globes in the square—they enter another street, darkened by the trees that border the sidewalk, but also by the night that has now fallen completely. To the west, behind them,Nula imagines, the curtain of darkness must have already lowered completely, erasing the last fringe of blue light that hung on the edge of the horizon. They don’t speak now, and despite the constant rubbing of their shoulders, forced together by the meagerness of the shelter and the irregularity of the sidewalks, their steps splash with the same rhythm. And though both, for different or possibly even opposite reasons, are impatient to arrive, each seems to have forgotten the other. In fact, they’re only strangers, and despite the ease with which they exchange the words that the other finds suitable, precise, smart, and so on, both are unsettled by what they might come to learn when the respective opacities that mutually attract them are finally illuminated. It’s possible this discomfort is caused, as often happens, by not fully comprehending that the curious attraction they feel comes from unwittingly associating the other with something they both want to reclaim, and which they’ve long kept hidden in some remote corner inside themselves. They cross the street again, onto another dark sidewalk. Halfway down the block, a wide strip of light, which divides the darkness in half, suggests that they’ve reached the place they sought. And, in fact, a tin sign hangs from a bar that extends over the sidewalk from the brick wall:
    EL AMARILLO
    F ISH AND G AME C LUB
    A rough, childish drawing of an elongated fish, painted the same bright yellow as Gutiérrez’s jacket, decorates the metal rectangle under the name.
    â€”We’re here, Gutiérrez says, and, apparently forgetting Nula, who is left outside the umbrella’s protective cylinder, takes a few steps toward the open door and inspects the interior. Nula walks up and does the exact same thing, with very similar movements,not realizing that, because Gutiérrez has his